


Step One: Join the Strawhats

by thevelvetkey



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, R.O.B. shows up, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2018-12-01 09:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11483580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thevelvetkey/pseuds/thevelvetkey
Summary: Failed Step One.





	1. Chapter One

**Step One: Join the Strawhats**

**Chapter 1**

_Hi there! I have just binge-read this fic, so consider this a review for the whole story and not only for the latest chapter._

_The beginning is really interesting and well thought-through. It’s not that original, but hey, every SI Fic somehow starts the same, so that’s not a problem. It might have been more fun if your SI character did not get a devil fruit right from the start, but that’s not that important for the storyline itself, I guess._

_I think your devil fruit, the write-write fruit, was something I haven’t seen used before, so I liked how you explored how to use it best. You did a good job there. What I didn’t like about it is that it is a bit too overpowered for my tastes._

_The characters were portrayed a lot like canon at the start and I really liked the feeling of the story, but somewhere after the Alabasta arc, things kind of started to go downhill. Badly. Nami turned into a money-minded witch who doesn’t care about her friends, I felt as if Zoro would rather take his swords and leave and Sanji would never leave someone hungry if he could do something about it. That’s not going to happen. Just don’t._

_The same development that happened with the characters also happened with your storytelling in general. The dialog stopped flowing and there are some serious grammar issues. Also, I don’t know what made you think that “Woodmover, move the wood over here” is acceptable dialog for Galeyla workers._

_Maybe you’d want to rewrite the last bit of the story instead of continuing with updates,_ BeenObviouslyReversed? _Or at least take a break from writing if you’re going through a lot of stress in real life now, because everyone would be happier with quality instead of quantity._

After I read through my review once more, I clicked on the ‘send’ button. Immediately afterwards, I had the feeling that maybe the review was a bit harsh, but I also knew that I couldn’t change it anymore. The author probably didn’t care either and would just continue doing the thing he did.

Or not.

1 new PM. That was fast.

_Hi!_

_Thanks for your review, I do appreciate it. I know that the story quality is not the best, but that’s because I am only doing this for fun and also because it’s my first try at a fanfic. I was already thinking about rewriting it from scratch, so maybe that’s something you can look forward to?_

_In case you review again, I hope you will be less harsh and maybe a bit more constructive? It is important that people tell me what they don’t like, but it would help me far more if you could bring forth a few solutions for those problems._

_BeenObviouslyReversed_

Might as well do that constructive part right now then.

_Wouldn’t it be more fun to write a qualitatively better fanfic? And I understand the ‘first fanfic’ argument because everyone has to start somewhere, but that does not really explain why the quality dropped so much since you did some great work in the first chapters._

_So, about constructive: Maybe create a less bland Self insert character? Reading Oleander Blake is just a long name for a character that is very generic. He has his special character traits, but as a whole, he is almost on light novel main character level which is not a good sign. I doubt that you yourself are so generic; why don’t you use your own personality as a reference? It’s an SI fic, after all._

_Also, yeah I understand that you want your Random Omnipotent Being involved in the plot instead of only being a plot device but that doesn’t mean he has to deus ex machina the Strawhats out of every little problem._

_You might also want to rewatch/ reread One Piece to get a hang of the characters to avoid all that OOCness._

It didn’t take my chat partner long to answer again. How fast did he think, write and/ or read?!

_It might be more fun, but it is also more_ stress. _Stress that I don’t need right now because I’ve got plenty to handle without writing this story._

I started to believe that our encounter would not end in a new budding friendship.

_Bland? You really think that my SI character is that boring? How did you even make it through so many chapters then? But I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Have you ever tried to create an original character? It is quite difficult._

This was not going into the direction I wanted the chat to go, but since I already messed up this much, there was no saving it. Or maybe I was interpreting spite into a neutrally-meant  message.

_It can’t be that hard if so many people can do it. Just… write a human being._

_If you want to, I can try and help you with your story. Make it more interesting in general, write some better characters, get the story flowing. Because your plot needs a bit of help, too._

And again, a way too fast answer.

_Oh yes, please do. How about right now?_

Was that sarcasm?

_Right now isn’t that great. It’s late where I live and my fluffy pillow feels lonely without my head. How about tomorrow? In 10 hours?_

This time, the other person took quite some time to answer.

_Sounds good to me. See you later then!_

~*~*~

In summer, there is nothing better for a good night’s rest than sleeping with an open window, in my opinion. You get all the fresh air and since it’s cool outside, your bedroom will also be cooled. Air motion and the freshness are also positive effects. Of course, there are also some negative side-effects. You get more mosquitoes that bite you nonstop, depending on where you live, there might also be some other insects sneaking into your room. People sensitive to sunlight might wake up early. And of course, it’s not that nice a feeling when the wind blows sand into your face.

Wait… sand should not be on the list. That’s probably dirt my cat brought into my bed and that dropped on my face due to me moving around a lot in bed.

Anyway, moving on. If you’re the kind of person who needs a blanket no matter what, an open window might help because you’ll need something to keep you covered from the breeze. Speaking of blanket, I think I kind of lost mine. I’ve been clumsily trying to find it with closed eyes and somehow, I must have kicked it off the bed because I could not feel it anywhere close. My pillow was missing, too.

Damn, there was a lot of dirt on my bed. And for some reason, it seemed to stretch endlessly. And then something landed on my face.

“Please don’t be a grasshopper,” I murmured after the thing did not move for a while. “I don’t need another grasshopper incident.”

Slowly, I moved my hands to the maybe-living thing positioned on my eyes and poked the thing. I let go of the breath I held after it fell down. So no grasshopper. Alright.

The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was that the sun was not in the right place. The sun was not supposed to be straight above me. I sat up faster than I ever did before.

Beach.

I had been sleeping on a freaking beach.

I do not live anywhere near a beach.

The last time I have seen a beach has been 2 years ago.

I did not even like beach vacation that much.

Beach.

I fell back on my back and shielded my eyes from the sun with my left arm.

“It’s definitely too early to deal with this… situation.”

That was when another thing landed on my arm.

It seemed the world decided that it was, in fact, not too early to deal with my sudden beach visit. I lifted my arm and watched a paper airplane fall down beside my head. A bit curious, I sat up again and examined the plane.

It was nothing special. Just a run off the mill paper airplane like the ones kindergarten kids could fold. Did that mean that someone was close by? I scanned the area with a glare, but there were only a few trees behind me and sand. And ocean, of course.

Then I saw a third plane heading towards my head from across the water. Before it could hit me, I snapped it out of the air. I might’ve used more force than necessary and the annoying thing was crumbled pretty badly. That’s when I noticed that there was something written on them on the inside.

_Are you ignoring me? Rude. After you promised me to help write this damn story. How are we supposed to do this if you don’t answer?_

No. NO. Nonononononononononono-

I glanced at the other two messages and hastily unfolded them as well.

_Oh, I forgot to mention: Good luck and have fun!_

_I guess the first step is finding the Strawhats and joining, huh?_

And then the other one read:

_Hi again!_

_It’s been 10 hours now, so I figured you’d be ready to help me out. So, I thought it would be easier for us to write this story and ‘just write human characters’ if you entered directly and did the human part on your own. Fantastic idea, eh?_

_Yes, this is the One Piece world. Yes, I did this. Maybe I’ll let you get back home if you do a good job – it depends on how good my story will be in the end._

_See ya,_

_BeenObviouslyReversed, your local R.O.B._

_P.S. let’s do this the old-fashioned way and be penpals!_

I would love to say that my first thought was something like ‘I accidentally insulted the fanfic of a R.O.B.?! How did that happen?! I miss my family!’ or ‘I hope I survive this and can get home safely’ or maybe even ‘Nice! No more term papers and boring classes!’. But instead, it was simply the thing I snarled right after having read the letter which was: “How am I supposed to write a reply without a pen, idiot?”

That was when the next airplane approached, this time with a very sharp pencil taped onto it.

_Sorry, I forgot. So, from now on, I’ll be waiting for your answers, penpal friend!_

I grabbed the pencil and turned the sheet of paper around to have some space to write on. But the backside was not entirely blank as I thought it had been with the other planes. In one corner in tiny letters stood ‘To: Jayna From: R.O.B.’ and there was a little box next to ‘Return to Sender’. I ticked the box and started to write my answer.

_You know what? Fine! I’ll play along. I’ll join the Strawhats and give you enough material for a fanfiction that’s good enough to get an own fanbase – just don’t blame me if people don’t want to read it because of your poor writing skills._

_And you know what? Just to spite you, I’ll enjoy every second of this adventure!!_

I folded the piece of paper into a airplane, stood up and threw the plane in the direction it came from.

It was time to kickstart this wild ride. The sooner I could find out where I was, the sooner I’d join the Strawhats and begin this story.

~*~*~

At first, I believed that the R.O.B. had dropped me on a deserted island, but after walking along the beach it turned out that there was civilization. Some villagers were walking down the streets, old men were chatting on porches and women were trying to get the best prices at the small market.

And the children looked at me and asked questions like ‘Mama, why does this woman wear bed clothes?’ and ‘Was she robbed by the mountain bandits? Was she out too late?’. Otherwise the villagers were nice enough to not comment on my appearance. It seemed that the policy here was to stare and comment later when no one could hurt you – in case you insulted the wrong person.

The moment that I realized where R.O.B. has put me, my thoughts just… stopped for a minute or two.

_Partys Bar._

Either this bar was a chain and very popular in East Blue/the Blues/ this whole planet…

…or I was in Foosha Village.

Foosha Village.

The village where Luffy grew up.

Or, at least it was close to his home and he visited regularly.

The village he started his journey at.

Foosha Village.

Now that I think about it, I believe I saw some windmills.

Partys Bar.

Okay, I start to repeat myself a bit too much.

The only thing to do now was to find Luffy and the person who could help me the most was probably Makino.

“Youngster! Are you going to enter or not?” a grumpy voice behind me complained.

When I turned around, the first thing I saw was his red-and-white-striped hat. Basically because he was so small that I could not see anything else of relevance at first. Then I noticed his cane. And when he looked up, the glasses and his grey goatie as well as moustache stood out.

Woop Slap. An old-ish Woop Slap. Does that mean that R.O.B. was nice enough to not make me wait until Luffy was grown up enough to join his adventure?

“Are you entering or not?” he repeated himself, patience slowly but surely leaving his voice. I simply nodded.

When I opened the door and stepped inside, he headed directly for the bar, muttering about indecisiveness, wrong decisions, and how much he hated to have people around who damaged the reputation of the village with their stupidity… Was that referring to me as well?

The bar was a nice locale. Very well illuminated, friendly, and warm. Accepting. I could completely understand why Luffy liked this place and why Shanks decided to stay for a year. It’s a place that you like to stay at.

It was mostly empty. Probably because it was still early for people to be drinking. A group of around fifteen old men were sitting in a corner, drinking, laughing and telling stories of adventures. I could make out names like ‘Tsuru’, ‘Sengoku’, and ‘Kuzan’. Garp surely did not think a lot about his choice before he dropped Luffy and Ace here. It’s a miracle no one with malicious intent found the kids when famous pirates drop by and the old people all know high-ranking marines.

“Welcome to Partys Bar,” said the woman behind the counter. A few strands of her green hair framed her face while the rest was kept in place under a kerchief. Makino smiled at me friendly. “Have you just arrived here?”

“Hello. Yes, I am new here,” I responded quickly and moved towards her and sat down on a free chair.

Makino seemed to waiting for me to say something and that’s when I finally remembered that this was a bar and people came to a bar to order drinks. “I don’t have any money, so I can’t order anything. Sorry.” Makino chuckled. She left for a short while and went into the kitchen only to come back with a glass of orange juice. “You look like you ran into mountain bandits. Did you get robbed by them? You can go to the police station and if you’re lucky and they catch the group, you can get back what they stole.”

A shaky smile formed on my lips. “You could say that I got robbed, but I don’t think that the police can help me get back – what I lost. Thanks for the juice.”

“Makino! We need some more sake!” the men in the background shouted as a chorus and the barkeeper smiled even brighter. “I’ll be there in a minute!” Loud cheers broke loose.

She took as many bottles fit on a tray and carried them over to the table. Loud shouts of “Kanpai!” erupted from some while others kept Makino busy with conversation.

That’s when something poked my arm. I sighed into the juice. Not this paper plane mess again.

_You also might want to find Luffy soon. You’ll never know when it’ll be too late to join him on his grand adventure~_

Was the bastard trying to confuse me? Makino is here and she was shown to be at the port when Luffy left. Will he leave today? No, I think it would be too late for him to leave today. But maybe tomorrow?

Luffy is the type to take me along even if I only join him right when he sets sail; he wouldn’t question the decision even if he didn’t know me… Or would he? Is there even a slightest chance that Luffy could not take me along if we hadn’t met earlier on?

Makino was back from entertaining her guests and had started to polish glasses.

“-no longer entertaining your friends?”

Makino should know when Luffy will leave.

“It’s nice to talk to them but-“

Can I ask her without seeming suspicious?

“-wanted to ask you how-“

She’s an open-minded person.

“How is it going at M-“

She probably doesn’t think I’m suspicious for wanting to join Luffy on an adventure.

“Hey… uh, Makino, right?”

She looked at me questioningly but still friendly.

“I heard there was someone who wanted to go to sea here. I think the name was Luffy. Do you know where he lives?”

Makino opened her mouth to answer but her voice sounded a lot deeper than normal and also pretty old.

“There is a kid named Luffy living close by. Why are you interested?”

I furrowed my brows. What happened to Makino’s voice while she was over by the geezers’ table?

“I heard he wants to build a pirate crew and I thought I might join.”

“YOU WILL NOT TURN MY CUTE GRANDSON INTO A PIRATE! HE WILL BECOME AN UPSTANDING MARINE!”

My ear almost flew off at the sudden shout. I swear the sheer volume already produced wind strong enough to unseat me.

From my position on the floor I could see an angry Garp with a red head tower over me, arms stemmed against his hip and red head giving off steam through his nose.

Note to self: the floor of the One Piece world was just as hard as the one I was used to.

Also: Shit, why is Garp here?!?!? And did I just do the most stupid thing possible?

“I WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO BECOME A PIRATE WHILE I AM AROUND!”

“Garp, there is something you need to know,” Makino started while leaning over the counter and touching Garp’s arm tenderly.

“Not now, Makino. First, I will have to make sure that this girl here gives up on becoming a pirate.” Garp said while grinning at the barkeeper. The redness in his face didn’t go away which might be an effect of the countless bottles of alcohol that were littered at the old men’s table.

“…And how will this work?” I asked quietly. Better to get this over quickly. I hope this doesn’t end in a fist of love. Technically, I am still a normal citizen, so he can’t hurt me, right? Right?!

Garp sat down again and rubbed his chin. “How.how…” Makino used Garp’s long thought process to help me up from the floor. I thanked her quietly and she just nodded. I think she also winked at me playfully. But I might have imagined that little detail.

“AAAAAAAH! I GOT IT!” and Garp was back on his feet. “I just have to show you how much Luffy wants to be a marine and you will give up on that damned life choice!”

He was going to take me to Luffy now? Wasn’t that counter-productive for him? Was this actually the point when I meet Luffy and get added to his crew? Was this actually good fo-

Garp grabbed my arm. “See you later, Makino!” And he started to sprint. I tried to keep up with him, but he was already out of the bar when I realized I should start running. Any try to run with him instead of getting dragged was useless and I bumped into every kind of object in our way. I briefly saw old people grin at me and Makino waving as she stood in the doorframe of Partys Bar.

~*~*~

“DAAAAAAADAAAAAAAAAN!” Garp shouted at a hut in the forest while still holding my arm in a very, very tight grip. I think the blood is no longer able to circulate.

“HEEEEEY DAAAAADAAAAAN, ARE YOU HOOOME??” The few birds that had been around decided to leave when Garp took a deep breath to shout at the hut a third time. Luckily for my own ears, the third time stopped being a thing when a very sturdy build woman through a wooden log into his mouth.

“I heard you just fine the first time around, old man.” She waited until Garp stopped picking the splinters out of his tongue before she continued.

“What do you want?” she huffed.

Garp’s grin recovered as he proudly declared with his breast puffed up to maximum: “I’m here to check on my grandson!”

Dadan’s gaze landed on me and then back on Garp and back to me for several times. I guess she then decided that she really didn’t want to know the story behind my presence and simply stated: “You’re too late. He set sail yesterday to become Pirate King.”

She then turned, went back into her hut, and closed the door.

I stared at the door. Garp stared at the door. He let go off me but I did not move my arm from the position it was in, frozen in place by the simple yet devastatingly effective message.

For the first time I and Garp felt the same way.

“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!??!?!”

A paper slapped me in the face. It simply read _LOL_.

 

**A/N: Hi people! I decided to start a One Piece SI fic to get back to writing. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Pinch.

The seagulls were still flying in circles above my head.

Pinch.

The air still smelled salty, alright.

Pinch.

Yep, water still existed. But to make sure…

I eyed the cannonball pyramid close by.

…

The cannonball is very heavy. Cannonball is real, no question.

Splash.

Yep, water is cold and real and tastes disgusting.

“VICE-ADMIRAL! WE JUST LOST A CANNONBALL!”

“BWAHAHAHA, our new recruit is already testing out sharpshooting?”

Loud Garp and crew are also very real.

I tested those earlier by introducing my head to various objects on board. They approached me instead of vanishing into thin air, so I know that they are real, too.

I double tested the ship’s existence that way as well. Also, walking on a ship is not easy. I tested the planks multiple times with my face.

I might’ve even come to the conclusion that walking on this ship especially was made more difficult because it was so big and there were so many people that I had to dodge. Because these marines don’t care about a cabinboy… cabingirl.

That’s also something I am not too happy with. Why does the marine uniform read ‘cabinboy’? Is this discrimination?

I shook my head to get back to the more important topic that I should be addressing right now.

Oh god. I somehow managed to join the marines. In One Piece. I joined the marines in One Piece under Garp. I joined the marines in One Piece under Garp as a mere cabingirl.

How did this happen? Why did this happen?! WHAT DID I EVER DO TO GET THIS SHITTY ROUTE INSTEAD OF BEING A COOL PIRATE?!

I glanced around but there was not a single marine to be seen on the whole deck. Damn bastards are having breakfast. Why am I not getting any breakfast? Why am I the only one who has to work for it? This was not fair! Even worse was the thought that someone out there was getting served food that was made by Sanji and I have to starve out here until a ship’s deck that was way too big looked clean.

…I should stop thinking about food. Especially that Sanji’s food was a thing. A thing I will never taste if I can’t get out of here…

I bumped against the railing. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a dark shadow dive under the ship. Would that thing have snacked on me if I fell over board? Why is there no one to look out for me? What if I did fall over board?!

Forget joining the Strawhats, this life was way too dangerous. At least for someone like me. I want to get out of here.

I pulled out a piece of paper that I hid in my jacket pocket. At least these ugly white uniforms had pockets.

_Hey, you R.O.B._

_How do you expect me to do anything interesting when I’m stuck with the marines? I thought you wanted me to help you write an awesome alternative Strawhat adventure??_

Instead of folding an airplane, I just took the piece of paper and threw it away as far as I could. It flew and then it began to drop and then a wind picked it up and let it fly in the opposite direction of what I had originally intended. The paper ball was gaining height. It was now above the ship sails and then it began to drop again. It hit the sails and descended quickly. It hit the ground approximately five meters away from me.

I was already running towards it to throw it back at the sea, but before I could reach out, a seagull picked it up and began flying away. Then, the seagull was picked out of the air by a very big fish that eyed me hungrily before it hit the water again.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” I swear I ripped out some hair accidentally.

“BWAHAHAHA! That’s some warrior spirit in that shout. But that fish is a bit big for you – it’s hard to kill them if you only have a mop. At least for you, bwahahahaha.”

I believe that I now know how Nami feels every time Luffy says something stupid that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem they had to solve. It’s that feeling of fatigue and despair you get when you know that nothing you do or say would change the current misconceptions, so you just go with it.

~*~*~

It took me a while to find Garp. The guy was never where his subordinates thought he was or he disappeared just when they wanted to point him out. In the end, I decided to check the same place I would be looking for Luffy if I needed to: in the kitchen. It was not as easy to find the kitchen than I thought it would be. Marine ships were just way too big for any person to find something without getting lost. At least Garp was true to his DNA and was indeed trying to puppy-eye the cooks into giving him more meat. I watched a while, trying to catch my breath from my 20-minute journey to the kitchen.

After a few failed attempts, Garp switched into trying to intimidate his crew into giving him access to the fridge, but that, too, was futile.

“You better take a seat; this,” a mummy waved at Garp and the three cooks, “can take a while and you better not interrupt.”

I took a second glance at the man who had just spoken with me and I had not mistaken in the mummy-part. The man – his voice was deep and raspy, so I guess he was male – was completely wrapped in white bandages from head to toe.

He was drinking some water through a straw and it looked so weird that the straw ended somewhere within these bandages. His uniform blended into his wraps almost perfectly.

It seemed that he noticed my stares and off-handedly said: “Don’t worry, it’s just a mere old flesh wound. Nothing serious.”

I just stared even harder and finally answered dryly. “Being a marine sure is a dangerous job.”

The mummy man huffed. “It is an unappreciated job, but someone has to make sure that the sea is safe for normal people.”

I think that you, sir, have taken that ideology a bit too far if you ended up like this. “Pirates really are a problem, huh?”

The mummy started laughing and to my confusion he was so amused that he had to grab the edges of the barrel on which he sat so that he didn’t fall off. “Pirates? Who is talking about pirates?” He cleared his throat and continued in a more serious tone: “Pirates are just humans and if you’re strong enough, everyone can deal with them. No, the problem is not pirates. The real menace are the seakings.”

“Wha-“

“Seakings are the most vicious and gluttonous species I have ever met! Have you ever seen one? A big one, not the ones here in the East Blue? Pure evil, I tell you. They eat ships; they even eat whole islands, if you let them. Pirates don’t do that. They might pillage, they might kill, but they don’t go out of their way to obliterate anything like seakings do.”

Somewhere along the way, I got lost. Since when did marines hate seakings? Was this a thing? I don’t it was ever mentioned in Oda’s version.  “I- I don’t know what to say, to be honest.”

“I can understand you perfectly. There are no words to describe the evil that is seakings adequately.Bastards ate my face.”

If I had the chance to slowly inch away, I would probably do so but the kitchen was stuffed as it was and the barrel I was sitting on was a bit too heavy for me to move, so I just sat next to the mummy man and alternated between looking at my feet and back at Garp to check on his shenanigans and new strategies. He was trying the sneaky approach now.

After Garp went as far as to try and climb through a window behind the barrier of cooks (he dived under the ship to get to the window, a strategy Luffy would probably use as well if it weren’t for his devilfruit), they gave him a steak and told him to keep away until it was time for dinner. He turned around, steak in his mouth, looked at me and only now noticed that I was present. Before he could ask me what I was doing here, I explained: “I finished cleaning the deck. It is now very shiny and very clean, unless something happened to it after I left, of course. Would it be possible for me to start training?”

Garp blinked and then started to laugh. The steak had disappeared while I gave him a status update which was good for him because else he would’ve chocked on it now. “Bwahaha! You’re an eager one! Didn’t expect that. Training, huh.” Garp rubbed his chin slowly and furrowed his brows. “Training for a wimp that can’t do anything yet and is physically incapable of lifting a metric ton… How about we throw you into the never-ending hole on Gravity island and let you climb out on your own?”

I wanted to protest that ‘nothing’ was a bit hard and that I had practiced Iaijutsu for a year and a half before I ended up in this world, but that changed quickly after his suggestion and turned into: “I don’t think I can manage climbing out of a never-ending hole. How about we start with something else? Please?”

Garp went back to his thinking pose and grumbled something until: “How about we go to Roma Island and sign you up for one of the gladiator shows where you can fight tigers?”

Did this man understand how you are supposed to begin training? Okay, moot point. The way he ‘trained’ Luffy is enough of an argument that no, he did not understand how to treat a beginner.

Before I could protest this time, mummy joined the conversation. He tapped Garp on his shoulder to get his attention and then began to explain his view on things. “Vice-Admiral Garp, how about you leave this to me? I normally take care of the recruits, so I know how to deal with beginners. Since this is the East Blue we’re talking about, we should go easy at first.”

Mummy man! Thank you for understanding me! You may be a bit strange but at least you are human enough to feel pity.

Garp looked a bit disappointed if the way he sagged into his barrel was any indicator. “Fine, Nick. You take care of her training for now.” And with that, Garp left.

I smiled at mummy man and I think he smiled back for a while. It was hard to tell, really.

“So, between running, swimming, and cycling: which do you prefer?”

One of these, I hated and another one was plain annoying after a while. So, my pick was clear the second he asked.  

“Trust me, everything will be okay. You do your swimming and I will take care of the sea kings. I’ll tie you to the ship so you won’t drift off. Everything is perfectly safe. You get your training, we’ll get more food reserves.”

~*~*~

I hugged the mast while Nick tried to calm me down. “Those monsters will EAT me before you can do anything!”

Nick sighed. “They won’t eat you if Vice-Admiral Garp eats them first. Remember that you were the one who wanted to train? It is also part of our duty to keep the ocean safe and seaking-free, so it is a perfect training for your marine career, too!”

Nick's approaches to get me into the water attracted some attention and soon we had a crowd of marines surrounding us, talking, and grinning. I even saw some money change hands.

Damn marines. Wait until I join the Strawhats. I'm so going to make you pay.

And then, the crowd opened a path for a big, sturdy, old man with a marine coat who frowned but started to grin when he realized what his men were staring at.

"Is that the training you came up with? Ripping out the mast is still too hard for our new recruit if she can’t even work up the courage to fight tigers, Nick. Though nice try, I admit that. It's almost good enough to be one of my ideas. Bwahahaha!"

Nick stopped coming up with new arguments to make me let go of the wood and turned to his superior. Hands resting on his hips, he sighed.

"Vice-Admiral Garp, I've been trying to get her to build some muscle by starting with training she might like. When she said she liked swimming, I thought that would be a good start. But suddenly, she seems to be scared of the water."

Garp blinked once, then another time and then again.

"Maybe she's just shy?" Garp mumbled to himself more than to the crowd. But since this is Garp, his voice was still loud enough to be heard by everyone near us and a few marines tried to stifle their laughter while others did not care to cover up their amusement.

That's not the damn reason, old man. Stop being such an idiot. I can't swim in this death trap ocean full of abominations that shouldn't exist.

Too busy to mentally insult the geezer, I didn't notice how he walked towards me and Nick until he was standing right next to me.

"Sometimes you have to throw them straight in because they are just too embarrassed to start training even if they want to." With these words, he picked me up and pulled me away from the mast as if I weighed nothing more than a feather. The mast, however, was not left undamaged. My fingernails left deep trails in the wood and I wasn't sure if the wood was whining because of pain or if that was me, dreading what came next.

Then, Garp started to pull back the arm that was holding me. Before I could form any thought equivalent to 'Oh no', I hit the water. Hard.

One positive experience: No monster tried to eat me before I could reach the surface again and take a deep breath.

Negative experience: Two seakings surfaced about 10 seconds later.

"Wooh! Two seakings right away! Good job! Keep attracting them! We will clean the ocean and fill our food reserve in no time!”

"Great idea, Nick!" some marines cheered. Something told me that they didn’t share the same goal and just wanted to see me struggle. I’d like to see you in my situation, how about you cheer then?

"Meat!"

The last one, if not obvious, was Garp who now had stars for eyes and was drooling.

I did not know what to be pissed at more: that I was used as bait for some fish or that I was the one who made this situation possible by dumb life choice. I should have just said that I was a born coach potato and that I planned to keep it that way, only exercising my brain.

"Hey, girl, if you don't start swimming, we will leave you behind!"

"Yeah, we don't want that because then we won't be able to pull in all the meat! So, hurry up!"

I scowled at the marines that were standing at the railing and grinning and shouting and... jumping at the sea kings, kicking them in the head and then dragging them closer to the ship. Those that were not fighting seakings pulled the dead one up to the deck and dragged them off to, presumably, the kitchen. Nick was standing on the railing and shooting harpoons at seakings only using his bare hands. Or at least his hands were as bare as they can get while being covered in bandages. Garp was long gone. He sank his teeth into one of the first seakings and got dragged along by his men. I wish I could do that, too. Maybe I’d get food poisoning or something but I wouldn’t face an almost impossible task.

There's no way I could keep up with a ship, but at least I could try to do my best. It's not like the ship could be very fast when half the crew was trying to stock up on meat to fill their captain's stomach, right? Right?!

That's when I saw someone go up to Nick, whisper something, and point at me. Nick stopped shooting at the seakings for a while and watched me closely. He nodded to the other guy and shouted: “Hey, new recruit! We forgot to tow you to the ship! So… you have to swim quicker if you want to come back on board!”

...Damnit, Garp. I blame you because you threw me into the water without thinking.

I started to swim towards the ship as fast as I could to make up the ever-increasing distance.

Two hours later, I had to be pulled out of the water by some marines, before I drowned because I couldn’t move a muscle anymore. Crazy training might be an anime thing, but it’s unfair that anime has the concept of exhaustion just like real life does.

The sea king count of the day: Twenty-eight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! So, how do weekly updates sound? I'll try to post in the 24-hour frame that I call Wednesday which may or may not coincide with your Wednesday. See you next week!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Still on my first day, me and the marines ran into a problem none of us had thought would occur. The problem was still there though. After we noticed it, it was glaringly obvious that something like this would have had to happen. So now, we had to deal with this crisis and fast because not a lot of people were happy if it dragged out.

The said unhappiness would be caused by me being pissy and that meant things could turn ugly in no time.

"How about we put you in the store room? It's not too cold there at night and you'd have enough place. Plus, no one would disturb you."

I eyed the crates around us - us included me, Nick, Garp, and a few other marines that have not been introduced to me yet.

"I don't know. Those monstrous wooden containers look like they could kill me if they fell on me and they are pretty loosely held in place."

Some marines began to make noises as if they had stomach problems. They reminded me of one of my professors and how rude it was to make such noises. Has no one taught them manners? But, I got to say, I feel you guys, I also have been at this for an hour. We're all in the same boat. Literally and metaphorically speaking.

"The rope is thick and well-maintained," Nick began to argument, but was interrupted by Garp who thought it was smart to add: "If they fall on you, you can use it as extra training to build muscles."

His bright grin was enough to convince everyone that he thought that was a good idea and would seriously get me to stay here.

"No thank you," I said dryly while smiling my nice-girl-smile.

"I still don't see why I can't have a hammock in the room where everyone else sleeps." I questioned for the I-don't-know-how-many-ieth time.

The marines performed their answering chorus for the same amount of times: "Because you're a girl and the rest of the crew is male!"

"Geeze," I mumbled into my non-existing beard, "as if I would peek when you're dressing or stuff. Do I look like a pervert or something?"

Then, a bit louder I added: "If I will get singled out, can I at least get a place that's a bit warmer?"

Garp hummed and stroked his beard while trying to think about that request seriously. "Well, there is the kitchen with the oven but that's not on all the time and Luigi will nag if we try to use more energy than necessary."

I guessed that Luigi was the cook. Maybe he was the guy with the twirled mustache. He was also the cook with the biggest hat, so maybe that meant he was the boss of the kitchen. It was funny to see a marine cap that went up to the ceiling. Imagining how funny One Piece would’ve been if all the captains would wear high caps would have to be left for another time, though. Now was not the time to be musing about hats.

I sighed. "Fine, I'll stay here but I'm going to decide which corner I'll use. And I will move some crates. The ones that look especially vicious and threatening." I am not going to trust those boxes. Boxes and other wooden furniture was always out for me, placing themselves just right for me to run against it and hit my knee or toes. That behavior was super unfair because even if I got hurt, the damn wood never got damaged.

I took the bundle of clothes that one marine was carrying for me - marine uniforms. Great. The thing I Always Wanted to have. Even perfectly complete with the 'cabin boy' written below the seagull logo. Gee, thanks.

Do I look like some brat that is only good for cleaning? I've (almost) got my bachelor degree!...Who am I kidding? Those people probably didn't even know what that is or how to spell it and to them, I was nothing more than a strange brat barely grown out of her teenage years that is no good.

I needed to hurry up and catch up with Luffy, I thought while smiling friendly at the marine who brought me those ugly uniforms and thanking him for helping me. Such a nice guy.

"No problem," he reluctantly smiled back while his friend looked like he was frantically looking for something to help me carry as well.

Those guys seriously have problems if they'd do everything it took just for a girl to smile at them.

"I'm very sorry to ask you for help - I'm sure you got better things to do, but could you maybe help me relocate some of the crates?" My voice jumped up a few intervals. Nice girl facade was now fully activated and it worked wonders since both guys were suddenly even more willing to help if that was even possible.

~*~*~

Sleeping in a room alone had a few nice aspects but also a lot of drawbacks. Like you would expect.

I could sleep when I wanted, no one would keep me awake with their snoring or their constant movement or sleep talking. I could wear whatever I wanted and no one would look at me strangely if I decided that changing my set of clothes was unnecessary to sleeping. Also, no blanket thief. That's a nice thing, too. People who steal someone’s blanket are on the same level as people who steal food. That's a no-go except if I'm the one doing the food stealing as revenge action for previous food theft.

The drawbacks were that people also woke me up as the last person and when I finally managed to get up and then took my time to find the dining room, there was almost no breakfast left to steal from me. Also, mice. Or rats. Whatever. Rodents. A lot of rodents crawling through the creaks in the crates and in the rills between them. I needed some mouse traps. Oh, screw the some. It would probably take around a hundred of those things to get a rodent-free room.

I took the last bit of rice the cook had left and a piece of sea king steak and started looking for a place to sit.

The bench where Garp was seated was completely empty and I instinctively moved towards it, but then my brain took over and reason took the reins again. There was a reason why no one was sitting next to Luffy's grandpa. Most likely because he was also stealing food like it's an Olympic discipline and he desired to win the gold medal. Luffy had to get that habit somewhere, after all.

I made my towards a group of faceless marines. The ‘unimportant’ faceless kind, not the ‘seakings ate my face’ kind of faceless. I flashed them a sweet smile. “Can I sit next to you?”

They looked at each other, before some shrugged and the others nodded. I didn’t really care about these men, but their table was far away from Garp and out of his sight.

I think this was the first time I got a good look at Garp’s crew. To put it in simple terms: there were a lot of marines on this ship. I could easily count a hundred men without counting some twice. And there were really on other women on this crew. Sure, the anime as well as the manga hasn’t shown many female marines, but that didn’t mean that there were so few in general. Did that mean that besides Tsuru, Hina, and Tashigi, there were no really important women in the marine? That’s a bit sad for a world like One Piece’s where everyone could kick ass when they wanted to and put some effort into training.

Oh well, there were enough cool female pirates and that was all that counted. Who wanted to be a marine anyway when you could go full pirate?

I also noticed that the marines next to me had gotten their hands on some stripes of bacon. Note to myself: get up earlier and snatch bacon yourself before there was none left.

The food itself was okay, but nothing special. I discovered that sea king tastes like beef which I didn't think was possible since every kind of exotic animal always tasted like chicken - or at least I assumed that every kind of exotic animal tasted like chicken. It seemed to be some standard of measuring taste of new kinds of meat.

I also understood how Sanji could feed Luffy sea king meat without Luffy throwing a tantrum. On second thought, Luffy didn't seem like someone who would complain that fish is not meat, he would eat anything and be even happier if it had lived and breathed beforehand.

With Sanji cooking, anything would taste good either way.

To be honest, me wanting to join the Strawhats might also be so important because they got Sanji. Good, free food was always a good argument. My circumstances could've hardly been better if I had landed in Shokugeki no Soma and became a food judge.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is: I like food, I like it in good quantity and quality.

But there was one problem with good - or in this case, average - food and eating a lot of it. Swimming turns into a much more energy-draining activity than it needs to be. Also, cramps.

The sea kings seemed to have learned their lesson yesterday because they were wary of attacking me and waited for a moment when Nick didn't look into my direction and then they launched their attacks, deeming it safe enough to snack me. Or maybe instead of smartening up that way, they just simply saw their dead mates being pulled along in the water next to me. The storage room was too full but no one wanted to leave meat behind.

One of these suckers was almost as fat as the ship was high and it was five times as long as Garp's ship. Just to be clear, we’re talking about one big ship. The seaking was probably even longer, but that was the part I could see while it was swimming next to me, shooting me angry glares once in a while. I ain't scared of you, you yellow-green striped bastard. Try something and you'll land on my plate at lunch time. I might not be able to fulfill that promise but Garp was.

Nick has gone to take a nap and Garp was looking out for me. He had been sitting in the corner and looked a bit sad so Nick felt bad and asked Garp if he wanted to take over. Garp had beamed at the offer as much as Luffy looked excited when he saw a new island. After a while of uneventfulness, Garp began snoring though. I think I saw a snot bubble coming out of his nose, growing and shrinking in size in irregular periods.

"Try something and I will be avenged," I snarled at the seaking, trying to not get any water into my mouth which was hard with all the high waves the big fish caused.

Saltwater didn't taste good, I can tell you. I just couldn't understand why fish and other stuff actually lived in the sea, or at least I couldn't understand why the fish in One Piece did. They were clearly able of thought processes if how the yellow-green sea king looked up to Garp when I threatened it with revenge said something about its intelligence.

Maybe they just stayed here because they got better chances at getting food since so many people travelled by ship. It's probably the same way with how I stayed at my parents’ place because things were easier even if it wasn’t always the most pleasant option.

"You're a clever fish, don't make a mistake that costs you your life. That would make you a very stupid, very dead fish."

The seaking snorted at me and then dived, creating a lot of big waves that hit me completely unexpected. The damn fish did that just to make me gulp down more of this disgusting seawater. Now I just hoped that the fish didn't pull any stunts like an attack from beneath. I wasn't going to trust Garp's snot bubble to pop at the right moment. In the anime, it didn't pop when he himself was attacked, so why should I believe it would disappear when I was in trouble?

The sea king emerged again, this time with a smaller sea king, hanging lifelessly in yellow-green's jaw. His lips curled into a grin around his species mate. I lifted my right eyebrow, trying to look unimpressed.

"Wow, you can kill someone smaller and weaker than you. I'm so not impressed. That grandpa can do a lot more, you know? He didn't even take out all these sea kings you see floating behind the ship. That's what the crew did without his help."

I tried to point at Garp standing at the railing but that only destroyed my form and made it harder to keep above the water surface.

The seaking kept staring at me until he swam towards the dead seakings dragged behind the ship and threw the dead, smaller seaking onto the pile. He looked at me one more time and then disappeared in the depths.

I stopped swimming and kept staring at the spot that the seaking vanished at.

“You’re going to be left behind at this rate. Do you need a pause?”

I looked up to the railing and saw Nick leaning over it, looking down at me. Probably looking down at me. Clever fish, I knew it.

~*~*~

Nick stared at me during the break. I was sure that he was staring because I heard a faint ‘jiiiii’ coming from him. At first I thought I would ignore it, but it was getting louder slowly but surely.

“Is something the matter?” I asked him.

Nick took his sweet time before he gave an answer, pausing after every word like he was thinking about what to say. “It is kind of strange, you know. How you are very slow and can’t keep up swimming for more than 4 hours at a time. When was your last check up? You’ve been visiting a doctor regularly, right?”

That topic had to be addressed sometime soon, huh. But now was still a bit early. Of course I would be less fit than a team of marines that had been to the New World and had to live with Garp every day. That was only natural. It should not be that obvious that I was not from this world.

“Uh, I think my last visit at a doctor’s office was almost 8 years ago?” That was not even a lie.

That was Nick’s cue to stand up and drag me to the doctor’s office on board. Okay, it was less ‘dragging’ as it was a pushing me towards the office while constantly lecturing me about the importance of regular doctor visits. He was going on about regular check-ups to ensure health and find hidden injuries one wouldn’t notice and how important it was to check whether there was a good balance in vitamins and co.

When we arrived at the doctor’s office, I was already feeling that I wouldn’t leave any time soon. Not if Nick was staying, too.

~*~*~

Doctor Endou – or Finn, as the rest of the crew called the old man – was a nice, easy-going doctor with a long beard that rivaled that of Gandalf. The wise old man also thought I had serious health problems. Apparently, my body was lacking crucial amounts of everything ending on -ium, Vitamins, and a lot of other stuff.

I think it was not of help that I answered the questions “What is your normal diet?” with “Mostly candy and fast food.”

I failed every but one test the good doctor had for me. Weight-lifting, throwing, reading from a distance… you name it, I failed. Except for the one where he tested my reflexes by hitting my knee with a hammer. The poor doc didn’t have enough time to dodge and got my foot buried in his stomach.

Luckily, that was the last test. Now we were sitting at his desk and I was bored out of my mind. The doctor has buried me in pills to take and was explaining what I was not allowed to do and what I should absolutely do during training. Nick was scribbling notes and making a weekly plan for me while also writing down which pills I should take when. He also took the opportunity to settle a date for my next visit.

At least I was promised a lot of bacon for breakfast from now on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time I didn't read through it after writing and I hope that there are not a lot of strange sentences flying around. Till next week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Marine odd jobs were not to be taken lightly. It’s not that they’re super hard and almost impossible to accomplish. No, that would be an exaggeration of the highest degree. The odd jobs simply took a lot of time. It was quite logical since cleaning a ship that was meant for hundred+ men and peeling potatoes to feed them all and then doing the laundry was a lot of work. I thought it wouldn’t be so time consuming in the first weeks, but I was wrong. You don’t start easy here, you get the whole workload at once.

At least I got to see the stars at night when I was scrubbing the deck. It was a wonderful sight because no clouds were covering up the stars and they were so much brighter than back home. I was not someone who went out to see stars regularly, so I could not tell whether the stars were the same or not, but that did not really matter much.

I took a turn and was preparing to scrub the next few planks when I noticed that I wasn’t the only one up and awake – on second thought, of course I wasn’t. There was at least one person in the crow’s nest. One of the men on deck was Garp. He was easy to recognize because of his build and age and his loud signature laughter. The other person was less unique but still distinguishable with the sword hanging from his belt and the fedora that shaded his face.

“Bogard, what’s up with the sudden present? Have you missed me that much? It looks just like the ship’s figure head, bwahahaha!”

Garp held his signature dog hat in his hands and the person next to him remained silent. Bogard… the name was ringing some bells, but I was not all too sure who he was. No matter who he was or what he was doing here, I still had a job to do and any kind of disturbance would drag it out even more. I put down my bucket when Bogard turned towards me, Garp’s eyes following his glare.

Garp’s smile became even brighter than it had been before. “Ah, yeah, before I forget: That’s our new recruit. Picked her up at Fuusha. Her name is… her name…” Garp fell into a silence and rubbed his chin for a while until, “What’s your name again?”

I suppressed the urge to slam my head against the nearest wall. I was on board for almost three days now and he had not noticed that he had never asked me what my name was? “It’s Jayna, Vice-admiral Garp.”

“Yep, that’s her. Bwahaha! What do you think?” he asked Bogard.

Bogard stared in my direction for a while before he said one word. “Weak.”

Well thank you Mr Fedora, tell me something I don’t know.

“Bwahahah, you haven’t seen anything! She was even weaker when we took her in,” the Vice-Admiral boasted.

Thank you, Garp. I will now ignore you and your friend and continue my cleaning.

~*~*~

Another night and no time to sleep because the weapons would not clean themselves. All the cannonballs got dusty, stowed away without use in one dusty old room with creaking planks. What interested me more were the bamboo swords in the corner of the room, though. Personally, I had only trained with those once or twice, only when Ichigo-sensei wanted to show us the importance of fast reactions. I don’t know how often he had purposely hit my fingers to get that lesson into my head. Lessons like that couldn’t be taught well with the solid wood swords we used in our regular training.

I noticed how my eyes kept wandering to the swords because they were really so much more interesting than stupid cannonballs. My cannonball maintenance speed grew slower and slower until I decided to follow my impulses and pause the cannonball maintenance completely for some sword swinging. The bamboo sword was lighter than what I was used to, but it was not bad. The ceiling was high enough to swing without being too careful and after a while, I decided to go through some stances and kata.

Take a step, ram the sword hilt into enemy in front right, pull the non-existent sheath down, arm back up, lean sword against arm, thrust sword while turning backwards and DON’T HIT THE FEDORA GUY WHO HAS SNEAKED UP ON YOU!

Bogard did not even blink when the sword stopped millimeters in front of his brown suit. That was close. Not like I could’ve killed him but I didn’t want to know what kind of extra work I could get for accidentally hurting a high-ranking marine. I pulled my sword back slowly and the sheathing routine as good as possible when one had no sheath or belt. He kept staring at me without moving, so I walked back to the place I got the sword from, put it back and sat down next to the cannonballs again. I kept my eyes on him, peaking up from the dusty cannonballs, until he left the room.

Bogard left after he had enough of staring at me and went who knows where. He really took his time because I only had to finish the last few cannonballs and left the room. On deck, I saw Garp sitting on the big dog figurehead, wearing his new dog hat. He really liked it, seeing how he did not take it off even once since he got it.

Garp looked awake, at least there was no snot bubble, so I walked towards him and decided to ask a question that has been on my mind for the last few nights.

“Sir, you said you’d make a marine out of me. How is dusting off cannonballs going to accomplish that?”

Garp did not turn around; Garp fell on his back, feet towards the moon and arms stretch as far as he could. “How do you think it can help?”

Really? You’re answering my question with a question?

“Is this to build strength? Durability? It’s not really a fast way to become stronger.”

The dog hat did wonders in hiding Garp’s expressions. “And why do you have to become stronger?”

So that I don’t die on the first adventure I share with your grandson, stupid old man. I forced a smile on my face. “Because marines have to be strong to catch pirates and criminals?” I meant it as a statement, but it came out sounding like a question.

Garp’s smirk was wide enough to show even while he was wearing the dog hat in the middle of the night.

“Then how about you defeat a pirate or other criminal to show me that you’re ready for the next level?”

I stared at him. Did the old man just outsmart me?

~*~*~

“That’s what he said! That’s unfair! It’s unfair, isn’t it?... Right?” I huffed the words between breaths while I was jogging across the deck whit Nick jogging next to me. He didn’t have any problems keeping up and I was sure that no matter how fast I went, he was holding back a lot.

“The vice-admiral is right about his judgement. If you can’t even manage to go for more than 30 rounds across the deck then there is no chance you could do the normal recruit training. There’s a reason why he put you into odd jobs instead of the normal recruit rank. It’s also time for you to take your meds.” Nick supplied in a completely reasonable tone that did not want to hear any retorts. He also tossed me the little paper bag of medicine he meant.

“But what will I do when we reach Headquarters and I can’t do anything by then?” Not that I was hoping to actually end up in the marine HQ. If I ever got there before joining the Strawhats, it would be a pain to get away from the marines. It would also take away a lot of my adventure time. My best chance would be to get on Garp’s ship when he was picking up Coby and Helmeppo when Luffy hit the Grand Line and try to catch up with them if I had no choice but to be dragged to the marine headquarters.

“Don’t worry,” Nick said cheerfully, “we still have lots of time before we get back to HQ. We got a job two days ago to take Captain Morgan into custody. We’ll arrive at Shellstown today and make it to the Grand Line within this month and then it takes around 3 weeks to get to HQ. A lot can improve in that time.”

Did I want to know how anyone could get to the Marine Headquarters from the beginning of the Grand Line within only 3 weeks’ time? What kind of magic is that? Also: wasn’t Shellstown the place where Garp picked up Coby and Helmeppo? And shouldn’t those two join Garp after Luffy has made it to the Grand Line? Is something happening to the schedule or was this world just so tiny and fast-paced?

~*~*~

Finally, we reached the first story-related canon island. It has taken way too long to make some progress, but at least now I knew that travelling from one island to the next took more time than I had expected.

The first thing that came I thought when we landed was that I did not recognize the town. At all. I did not even remember that the marine base had this broken statue of Morgan lying around, shattered, a health hazard to poor barefooted wanderers. The only other feature that stood out was the big wooden cross where the marines had tied Zoro up. The swordsman was no longer here but I already guessed as much. Luffy had to defeat Morgan for someone to call the Marine Headquarters and rat him out. As if any of his wimpy subordinates would show the guts to do so while the axe-hand man was still in power.

Funny that they chose to put the cross in a place where every visiting person would be coming through. Did no one care about the Marine’s image? Probably not, with all the corrupt marine captains in the East Blue.

Garp had been leading his group of marines to the base, walking through town while ignoring the way the townspeople hid behind their stands and closed the windows of their houses. Bogard was right behind Garp, looking full mafia mode again, and scaring the citizens even more. Nick’s looks probably didn’t help either. Oh well, we’d be gone in a few hours anyway, so I guess it did not matter how the people around here perceived us.

Now that we have reached the doors of the base, East Blue marines were rushing to greet our group with salutes.

One with a green neckerchief led the group and was the one to address Garp. “Vice-Admiral! Thank you for coming all the way from the HQ to take over our prisoner! I hope your journey was pleasant.”

“I stopped by my hometown and bought donuts. I am working on a personal best. 824 donuts and no pause for 5 days. I am becoming sleepy slowly but surely.”

…Was that the reason why you were awake at night, old man?! While I was working?!

Coby and Helmeppo stumbled out of the base and joined the ranks of the other marines, sloppily saluting and trying to hide their late arrival. If even I saw that, you kids have no way to hide it from anyone else.

The marines were exchanging more pleasantries until Garp’s side dispersed – I think they were told to ensure the ship was ready for a prisoner – and the Shellstown marines began showing us the way to Captain Morgan.

Everything went fine until it didn’t. A pair of marines came stumbling along the corridor towards us and where shouting something incoherent when a giant man with an axe as a hand threw them aside and ran in our direction. I turned to watch Garp’s reaction but he was snoring obnoxiously loud.

“Goodbye, old man!” the axe man shouted when he slashed Garp’s chest. A bloody wound gashed from his shoulder down to his hip while Garp fell over and continued sleeping. The East Blue marines screamed like little girls and one even fainted. Helmeppo and Coby were cowering in a corner, wailing. I only looked at Nick and then at Bogard, both did not show any kind of emotion. Okay, maybe Bogard looked a bit bored. Nick was always hard to tell because of certain reasons like him not having a face.

Morgan did not notice that both of Garp’s men were not in the least bit worried about their captain. No wonder he never made it far in marine ranks.

The ex-marine scanned the people present and when his eyes fell on his son, his iron jaw lowered into something that could be interpreted as a predatory smile. “Come here, you useless son!” he yelled and Helmeppo complied after a few seconds of intense glaring.

Helmeppo, do you even have anything resembling a brain in that strangely-formed head of yours? Apparently not, because he did not see it coming that his father would take him as a hostage to ensure no one would follow him.

Morgan kicked in a window and jumped out of the 3rd floor only to safely land next to the cross in the front yard with a wailing and squirming Helmeppo under his arm.

“Get the cannons, we’re shooting him down,” Bogard said calmly. Bogard could actually talk? I didn’t expect that turn of events to happen.

Just when the marines realized that they had gotten an order from a superior, Coby jumped up and blocked the way.

Still crying, he firmly stated, “You can’t! Helmeppo is still with Morgan! I can’t let you shoot him! He is my friend!”

Bogard walked up to Coby and shoved him aside and Nick moved to catch the boy before he could hurt himself.

One of the blue neckerchief marines mumbled, “We’re sorry for the boy’s behavior. He hasn’t been with us for a very long time… He- His friends… Some pirates told us that he had been part of Alvida the Iron Mace’s crew and he isn’t that used to taking orders…”

A ruff old voice interrupted the marine in his explanations. “The kid is an ex-pirate? Is that why you’re so loud? You woke me up.”

The surrounding marines began to mumble and whisper while some even pointed at Garp. Funny how the East Blue is not used to Grand Line level of bullshit; don’t they hear the stories? “What’s with all this noise? Did something happen? Are there any casualties?” Garp turned away from the window he was staring out of and looked at the soldiers with his grumpy grandpa look. When no one said anything, he followed their stares and… “I am the casualty!” I tried to stifle a laughter and ended up snorting very loudly. The marines looked more incredulous than amused, but that’s got nothing to do with the situation.

After assuring that ‘it was just a flesh wound’, Garp turned back to the window and looked through a pair of binoculars, probably observing Helmeppo and Coby. “If you don’t want to hurt the kids by accident, there’s nothing you can do right now”

I looked at the rest of the marines, but none of them were doing anything productive. Well, looks like there is nothing to do for me as well. I walked over to the window next to Garp’s and tried to spot Coby and Helmeppo. It took me a while to find them in the busy town. To be fair, the boys were just colorful dots, the one who I really spotted was Captain Morgan. The two colorful dots, one yellow and the other pink, where moving around the captain, trying to immobilize him. Coby must’ve got Morgan to drop Helmeppo at some point which was an amazing feat already.

“Kid’s got a grip. If he really spent some time with pirates, he should be used to holding a rope in place during storms,” Garp commented, not taking his eyes off the moving spots.

I never thought that Coby or Helmeppo had anything going for them when I watched the first few episodes of the anime. Now, I could admit that they had a base level of strength – Captain Morgan looked big in the anime, but here he was so much more in reality. He was a pile of pronounced muscle and one axe that was a bit rusty on the edges but could still do its job... Did he take the axe into the shower, too? That must be dangerous. Did this universe not know how to prevent metals from rusting? Or maybe Morgan just wanted to save his money by buying a rusty old axe instead of a new one.

Anyway, the boys managed to grip on to the colossus and stayed there even when Morgan was trying to pull them away from himself. Was this what it meant to be a pirate captain’s cabin boy and the rich son of a marine in this world? It was more than most back home could do if they came from similar backgrounds.

Wait!

I jumped away from the window and began sprinting down the way we had come. Coby had a history of piracy, even if he was only doing their cleaning and other non-piratey thing! If I manage to knock out Coby, I get to escape laundry and deck scrubbing from now on!

Standing outside, I looked around. I needed something to reach the three quickly since there was not much time left. Morgan would either grow tired of them before he reached the docks or ditch them right there where I last saw him. They had been halfway through town when I began running – by the way, not a good idea, running without warm up – so I needed to be faster than they were to catch up.

Cross that Zoro was bound to, no good. Stones lying around, no good. Beer bottles leaning against gate, nope. Cart filled with statue pieces, also no.

…Cart with statue pieces and a marine base build on a hill: perfect! I had no time or strength to empty the cart beforehand, though. Too bad, but I had to get there soon and that was my chance to get my necessary achievement ticked without much effort or getting into too much conflict with Coby. I needed to act carefully here. If I got into a fight with Coby and dragged him back, maybe he would fight back or Helmeppo could help him. Maybe Morgan would join when he thought I was threatening him, too. Taking out Coby with one swift hit was the best option. It’s not like going for Coby now would have any negative effects anyway. Captain Morgan escaped in the anime, so if he escaped and I k.o. Coby or if he escaped and Coby got away unscathed did not matter too much.

Now, which direction did I have to push this cart? It should be the direction that Garp was looking towards since he was still keeping an eye on Coby. Searching for Garp’s window was easy. No one else was so bulky (most marines looked like sticks compared to him) and leaning out a window. So, towards the clean-up-duty-free future!

I pushed the cart down the hill until I felt it start moving on its own. Okay, now jump in like a cool anime character would! I pulled my arms back to get some extra power and jumped towards the cart. I…admittedly did not land in the cart which rolled down faster than I anticipated and I fell into the dirt, face first. I did however manage to grab the cart. The cart went faster and faster, I could not see anything because I was still face down in the dirt. At first, I could feel my face and upper body and knees and how much it hurt every time I hit some bigger rock. Then, after I passed a few shops on the street, I no longer did so. I _think_ I saw a woman look horrified when I rolled past. I was gone to quickly to make out the small details.

Suddenly I heard a high-itched scream and it didn’t stop. Whoever was screaming really had a lot of air to spare. I gripped the cart even tighter, preparing for a collision. When there was no immediate crash and my thought process was working again, I released my grip on the cart. If there was no collision, it might happen soon enough and I did not want to be part of it.

I slid to a stop and started feeling my face and other body parts again, I heard wood shatter and stone collide with metal. When I looked up, I could see a lot of red. Mostly, because my blood dripped into my eyes and burned. I tried to smear the blood away with my hands, but the dirt they were covered in only worsened the stinging.

“Oh my god! Daddy?! Daddy, are you still alive?!” Helmeppo shrieked while shaking an unconscious Morgan by the shoulders. The axe that was his arm was lying on the ground, broken into various pieces. I hope someone cleans this up before someone steps on it and hurts themselves. Or worse, before I step on it.

I looked around to find the suspiciously quiet Coby, but it did not take me long to find him. Maybe I went a little over the top. Poor kid.

I walked towards Helmeppo who was shaking his dad who did not react in any way. His chest was moving up and down though, so I guess everything would be okay. Right next to Captain Morgan lied Coby whose nose had seen better days. I think he also lost some teeth and his glasses were smashed. I crouched next to him and poked him. The only reaction I got was a gurgle. I wished for a bit more, but realistically speaking, the gurgle was already a lot after he had been buried by the tall axe-man who had been catapulted onto Coby by smash of the cart into his back.

“Sorry?” All I got as a reply was another gurgle. I interpreted it as a ‘I’m fine’.

I stood up again, turned towards the marine base, grinned, and gave Garp a thumbs-up. I was sure he was still watching us through his binoculars.

A second later my face kissed the ground and my vision almost faded. I could feel the dull pain somewhere in the back of my consciousness and it was the only thing keeping me from a total blackout.

“DON’T ATTACK YOUR ALLIES, BRAT!”

I tried to answer, but the pieces of destroyed road all around my face muffled the words into gibberish. A bandaged hand pulled me out of the earth and started dusting me off and then slapped a wet piece of cloth in my face and started rubbing. I pushed the hands away as soon as I felt like I would not be falling over without support.

“I’m fine, Nick, please stop!” Mentioned mummy didn’t look all too happy to stop before the blood wasn’t gone completely, but my face and dignity couldn’t take any more.

I turned to Garp. “What do you mean ‘don’t hurt your allies’? Morgan tried to escape and Co- the pink-haired brat was called a pirate, so I was just trying to fulfill your condition ‘defeat a pirate’! And he totally counts because you never specified if it only means current pirates!” I wasn’t sure whether Coby has been introduced to me by name already or not. I hope not, else it might look strange that I knew him already.

Garp raised a finger in protest, but dropped it while simultaneously closing his mouth, opting to glare his mean glare at me.

Nick spoke up, “Listen, you might have had some kind of deal with Vice-Admiral Garp, but that doesn’t mean you can go and brutally knock out poor children. He even lost some teeth and regardless of his past, he’s a marine now. He even shares the same rank with you!” Oh my, he even struck the angry mom pose, hands at his waist and all.

“I already apologized, he gurgled an ‘apology accepted’…”

Before the conversation on how I was at fault could continue, Garp had an idea.

“I know what to do!” Garp exclaimed with a wide grin. “I will promote you by half a rank! Odd Jobs Recruit! Bwahahaha, isn’t it brilliant?”

“What exactly does that mean for me?” I asked, feeling like something evil was headed my way.

“Training on recruit rank level and duties of odd jobs kids!” Garp continued to laugh his deep laugh and I groaned in pain from the rashes I had right now and from anticipation of the pain to come in the near future.

~*~*~

The next morning, I finally dared to look into a mirror and what I saw was a completely red face from all the rash burns. But not only my face was ruined for the time being, but also my uniform, my knees, my legs, and my upper body. I talked to the doc and he said that everything would be alright in a few weeks but he also saw no problem in discontinuing my swimming practice. My experience with picked-open blisters and water wasn’t too great and I was not looking forward to the rashes-in-sea-water variation.

The one thing that helped me get over the shitty day I was looking forward to was my knowledge that the Strawhats couldn’t be too far ahead and maybe also my extra portion of bacon that Luigi kept safe just for me.

The dining hall was livelier than before. With Coby and Helmeppo joining, the ship seemed more energetic. Probably because to them the whole experience was as new as it could be. Coby showed his fascination quite openly while Helmeppo tried to hide his behind a smug façade that was not well built. Both of them also didn’t seem to be too smart since they sat down next to Garp and got their food stolen while they were distracted - Coby waved me over and Helmeppo looked at him annoyed.

I hesitated at first; it’s not like Garp would steal the food that Doctor Endou had designated for me but did I really want to spend time and maybe bond with these people? I would be gone very soon and then every bit of friendship would work against me because it would look like I betrayed that group of marines. I did not know how far a Garp whose feelings were hurt in that way was willing to go.

Coby still kept waving at me. Didn’t this boy know what a grudge is? I could’ve killed him yesterday, but he still wanted to be my friend? Why did this not surprise me?

Oh well, let’s do him the favor. I walked towards Garp’s table and sat down, smiling at the three of them. “Morning.”

“Morning!” Coby cheered, his broken nose made him sound strange.

Helmeppo only grunted and Garp smiled back, too busy to stuff more seaking meat into his mouth to answer appropriately. Maybe this was good training for breakfast with Luffy. At least it would make for some funny stories to be told to the crew of the Going Merry later onwards.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

“Vice-Admiral Garp, sir, are we heading directly for the Marine HQ? How long will it take us to get there?” an overly eager Coby asked Garp who was occupied with stealing the boys’ food without them noticing it. Or maybe Helmeppo didn’t care if his pancake got stolen. Thinking about the way he had eyed the pancake, he might even be happy that it disappeared without him having to eat it.

Garp laughed one of his deep laughs, leaning back and hands on his belly. “I like how eager you are, kiddo. But before we head towards HQ, we’ll stop by the Gecko Islands to shop for ingredients.”

Gecko islands. Gecko. Gecko… Gekko Moriah? Nah, probably not the correct association.

Nick sat down next to Garp with his own plate full of pancakes. Topping them was a big piece of butter that slowly melted and dripped down the tower. “Someone broke into the storage room and emptied every bottle of syrup. The cooks are furious.” Garp looked towards the ceiling and began to whistle completely innocently while the whole crew looked towards him, eyes filled with unspoken accusations.

“Isn’t the Gecko Islands that place where all the fancy, expensive syrup comes from? So we’re actually not ingredients shopping but just stocking up on syrup?” Helmeppo asked. When Coby looked at him quizzically, he explained: “My father always send his men there to buy it. To Syrup village, or something.”

Now Syrup village rang multiple bells. Usopp. The cat-themed pirate Kuro. Merry. If we’re heading towards Usopp and skip the Buggy island, we’re going to be there before Luffy which means I have a chance to meet him and join the Strawhats and get rid of Garp and this annoying marine uniform. I need to try and remember how Usopp’s arc went down; it’s been so long since I watched the early episodes and I never read the early manga, too… “I’m going for a swim. See you later!” And then I dashed out of the hall.

Swimming has turned into a more social event than it had been before which did not exactly help me concentrate on remembering details of Usopp’s story.

Coby and Helmeppo joined me of their own free will, or at least it was Coby’s free will and he convinced Helmeppo to join in as well. Both were trying to breathe in air without sucking in water, but they soon will learn that water is evil and waves always hits you when you wanted to take a breath. Don’t trust the ocean, it’s a douchebag that always sends a wave your way when you think it is safe to breathe in air. If you ignore that though, swimming was fun.

Aside from Coby and Helmeppo, there was also the yellow-green seaking that had joined me for training a few times already - staring, observing, planning something that was more than likely evil. This time, he was joined by a seaking that looked female by all western cartoon standards. The seaking was pink, a lot slimmer than her male counterpart, had long eyelashes (why would a fish have eyelashes to begin with?) and to top it all off, she wore a pink bow on her head that matched her skin tone perfectly. She left once in a while and brought roses with her when she appeared again. She deposited the roses on the dead seakings that our ship still dragged along. There were only two left now, by the way. Garp went through seaking meat like I go through hairstyle tutorials.

Anyway, Coby and Helmeppo made a ruckus the first time they saw the seakings and caused Nick to appear so suddenly that I could only suspect him shaving on deck. The seakings were intelligent enough to disappear and wait for Nick’s loud eagerness (“Seakings?! Where?! I got my harpoon and gun ready! Show yourselves, you devils in fish form!!”)  to quieten down before they appeared again.

Then Bogard showed up and that was the sign for our nice, idyllic swim session to end and for Coby and Helmeppo to start with their daily chores. As for me, I was chased around the deck in a sort of circle training that included sit-ups, push-ups, running, pulling myself up while hanging three meters above the deck on the complicated rope net-thing that is always near the sails of a ship. I did not like that part of my morning.

~*~*~

The marine docked on a sandy beach that looked almost like the one that Luffy and his friends stopped at in the anime. Maybe it was the same, who knows? Sandy beaches look the same to me everywhere just like the marine soldiers on Garp’s ship did.

Garp was shouting something to his men who then lined up in two neat rows and saluted. Bogard was already walking towards a small path and Nick was checking a list and ticking off things.

“Hey, Nick, what are you doing?” I asked.

“Making sure I carry everything we’d possibly need until we get to the base.”

There was a base on the Gecko islands? “There is a base on the Gecko islands?”

“Yes. It’s a bit of a walk from here since it was built in the only town on the islands.”

“We’ll see a marine base, Helmeppo! Isn’t that awesome?”

Where did those two come from? They suddenly appeared next to me and started intruding our conversation.

“I grew up in one and you cleaned one, it’s nothing special.”

Coby’s optimism took no damage and he continued gushing cheerily. “I heard that this base was built by Kevin D. Chantal who is known for super creative bases!”

Who the hell is Kevin D. Chantal? I don’t have to know what that is about, do I? what is up with all these weird new characters? It’s not like Nick was ever mentioned in the anime but now a _D_? okay, the marines never had all that many side characters introduced but still. One would think that Oda mentioned all the D’s that appeared since they all are somehow important?

“Are you coming, Jayna?” Nick called out from a distance. Oh, the group had started moving. Somehow Coby and Helmeppo made it to the front row of Garp’s men.

“You’re really jumpy today, Jayna. Are you okay?” Coby shouted with concern in his voice.

I have no idea what you’re talking about, Coby. I am not jumpy and I am feeling more than motivated to leave you all behind and begin my real adventure.

“I’ll be right there!” I shouted back and began walking towards the group.

~*~*~

Maple Town was the town that Kaya once visited in the story. At least I think it is because that seemed like the only plausible explanation. These Gecko Islands don’t have anything bigger than Maple Town. Everything else would barely qualify for a village.

What was not mentioned in the manga was that this town was crazy about selling their syrup. Almost every shop had a sign that read “We sell syrup! A bottle only 500 beli!” and random citizens would come up to you, holding out bottles of syrup right into your face and ask you if you wanted to buy some. It made keeping up with Garp easier because bought a bottle at almost every occasion until Bogard and Nick combined their strength to pull him away from the sugary liquid.

“Why is the base build in the place that is the farthest away from any access to the ocean?” I asked Garp who was moping because he missed the last five syrup vendors. I like to pretend that that sentence or any of my thoughts were perfectly paced and not interrupted by huffs and attempts to breathe in more oxygen. It was not fair that we had to walk the whole way while the villagers had wagons pulled by horses.

“Walking towards it builds character!” the old man answered cheerfully and sped up even more, creating even more distance between him and the rest of us poor folk that was forced on this trip. The whole march resembled a class trip. I hated it just as much as any class trip I ever went on. Suddenly Garp was back to being an overzealous teacher who walked with so much energy that his arms were whipping back and forth faster than a swingboat at a carnival. Me, Coby, and Helmeppo were the students who were dragged along against their will because their parents thought it was good for their health and overall fitness.

Nick offered countless snacks and refreshments on our way to the base. I don’t even want to know how he can keep more than 5 different types of soda, represented by 20 cans each, in his jacket. Or where he stores the chocolate bars.  

When we finally reached the base after a two hour march, I questioned who could have allowed such a project to be carried out. The D. person was either stupid or insane.

The Marine base of Maple Town, which had no connection to the sea or any other body of water that was big enough to safely have a ship travel on it, doubled as a dwelling mound. The place you bring ships to if you have to store them or do repairs. In the middle of an island. And it was not just some simple dwelling mound, this was on Water 7 scale. High-tech wherever you looked.

“This is stupid,”Helmeppo mumbled next to me. “Was that famous guy drunk when he designed that base?”

“I wonder more about why the marines actually built the base after the designs when it was clearly nonsensical.” I added my own mumbling to his.

We both waited for comment on Coby’s side but apparently Coby learned how to shave a few minutes ago because he was already gone.

When we didn’t move inside and only lamented the stupidity of the Gecko island base, Nick walked over and started lightly boxing us into the base. We got a chocolate bar as apology for the ‘violence’. “Are you going to eat yours or can I have it?” I asked Helmeppo who put his bar in his pockets demonstratively. That’s a no, huh?

The marines of the base seemed shocked to see a Garp in front of their gates and it took them a while to wake up the dude who was responsible for opening the doors. Turns out the guy had been training under Garp until he couldn’t take it anymore and Sengoku had pity on him. I hope I never get visited by Garp again after I thought I had lost his guidance forever. Which I hope would be soon.

After exchanging a few words with the person responsible for marine presence on the Gecko islands and Garp promising to take some pirates to the HQ, hammocks were arranged for all of us and the rest of the day was dedicated to voluntary training which is just a fancy phrase for free study time. It was used just like latter.

While Helmeppo decided that he wanted to disappear and not show up again until dinner and Coby wanted to help out around the base as much as he could. I used the free time I was given to walk over to syrup village. It was a calm walk and the length was not too much for a nice walk. It also led through some groves of maple trees that were a nice change from the burning sun that mercilessly attacks you almost the whole day when you are on a ship. Storm clouds were something that did not appear a lot in the East Blue.

When I made it to the small village that was named after the one product they sell to the whole East Blue, the only building that stuck out was the restaurant _Meshi_. Everything else was just not very memorable. The restaurant was memorable because I was impressed by the snark that was put in the name. Literally calling your restaurant ‘food’ is like telling your customers that either you think they are too stupid to know what kind of shop this is or shows that the person knows that they are the only ones who can reliably dish out good food in this village. I liked both interpretations.

Back to the actual reason I came to this village: finding Usopp. It turned out to be a harder task than I anticipated. Who knew that the guy who screamed ‘Pirates!’ every day would not be found immediately. I thought he would stick out like the restaurant. He was the only one with a big nose here, so that was already something. But no. No trace of Usopp and no trace of the three snot-nosed brats that hang with him.

After searching for half an hour, I was even down for asking villagers, but those seemed to hide behind closed windows and doors as well. Really, what’s up with this village? So I decided to go to the only other place that I knew was important for the story: Kaya’s mansion. I found it rather easily because there were signs pointing towards it. What a way to say ‘that way to the rich person, please leave us alone’. Maybe they did believe that a pirate attack might happen someday.

Kaya’s mansion was big and impressive by the standards the village and town have set. But it was just like the village in the silence and desertedness. No one was answering the doorbell. After I waited for some minutes, I decided to leave. I turned around and was greeted by the sight of three brats that were named after vegetables. Onion was holding a stone in his hands, Carrot was wielding a wooden toy sword and Paprika hold a slingshot that looked like the one Usopp used in the beginning of the story.

“Who are you and why are you here?” the Onion kid asked me, visibly shaking just like the other two.

“Where is Kaya? Or better yet, where is Usopp?” I asked dryly. No way I was going to play the kids’ game.

The kids looked petrified when I was done. “She wants the captain! Why does she want the captain!?” “But why Kaya, too?” “Because she wants Kaya to make sure that the captain won’t fight her! She’s a marine! She’s after the great pirate captain Usopp!”

“Yes, yes. I am an evil marine that wants to kidnap someone to catch a kid that plays pirate. Completely correct.” I rolled my eyes.

The kids shrieked and Onion and Paprika climbed a tree while Carrot stood at said trees roots and held his sword in my general direction. “Y-Y-You’re too late, marine! Kaya is gone to another island and the captain is gone to be a great warrior of the sea!”

It’s funny how these gained just as much confidence by lying ass Usopp did. He must have taught them more than he thought he did.

“Yeah right. So, where is Longnose?”

One of the kids threw the stone towards me. “We just told you! He is gone! He went out with Captain Luffy of the Strawhat pirates to have some great adventures that he can tell us about when he comes back.”

… How was this even possible?! The kids wouldn’t lie about Luffy because the only way they could know him is that he was already here. I skipped Buggy, how was Luffy still faster than me? Come on, life! That’s unfair!

“Okay, okay. You’re not lying. So, where did Kaya go off to? Did she join the pirates, too?”  As if that happened.

The kids exchanged looks and couldn’t help but notice that Carrot would be dead now if someone attacked him because who looks up when he was facing an opponent? Stupid kids should take real lessons from people who know how to fight if they’re still going to pretend to be heroes or pirates or whatever.

“If you tell me, I’ll give you a chocolate bar.”

And suddenly the kids were more than ready to supply information. “Kaya went to the next island to apply for university. She wants to be a doctor and left two days after Usopp left.”

Ah okay that explains why no one was at home. She probably took the sheep guy with her since she was still frail and sickly.

I handed the kids the promised chocolate bar. You’ll be missed, my friend. I was about to leave the cheering kids behind when one more question popped up.

“How long has it been since Usopp left, by the way?”

The kids shut up immediately and after a second of silenced they chorused: “Three days ago!” and then they ran off to somewhere I did not bother to think about.

I sighed and leaned against the mansion. Don’t worry, don’t worry about it. Everything's fine. I can still catch up with Luffy. The East Blue part still has more than enough stops to pass and I was not bound to follow the exact same path. I was able to cut corners and skip a few islands to meet Luffy elsewhere.

As long as I found the Strawhat crew before they hit the Grand Line, my chances to join their adventure looked good. I just wished a certain R.O.B. weren't such an asshole, but you can't get everything you wish for, I guess.

Speaking of the annoyance, he (she? they?) hasn't sent letters in a while. I had expected to find at least four of them being shot at me every day.

No, don’t think about _that_ of all things you could think about.

The best thing to do now would be to return to the marine base and on the way there figure out what I want to do.

~*~*~

There was not much to do in the marine base. It was the East Blue, after all, nothing seemed to happen if Luffy wasn’t around and since Luffy has already beaten Kuro, nothing interesting would happen here ever again.

Sitting in the backyard of the base, I saw some marines training in hand-to-hand combat under the blazing sun. Who would do that? It was way too hot for training. They weren’t even forced into that by an instructor. Then, there was a group of girls, some of whom were cheering on some of the training marines – oh, I get it. You guys are just trying to increase your chances to get a girlfriend. Good luck with that.

Then there was Coby who was carrying a food tray. The kid looked completely lost, turning his head in every direction and almost falling over his own feet when he took a step to the left. I guess Coby was the most entertaining option right now. I stood up and walked over to him.

“Hi, Coby!  What are you doing?” Coby jumped when he heard my voice and almost dropped the tray.

“Ah, hi, Jayna,” Coby smiled at me, “The cooks gave me this tray here and told me to give it to someone called Jerry, but I can’t find him. They said it’s for a prisoner.”

I blinked. A prisoner? Who could they keep he- Of course it’s Kuro. Who else could it be?

“If you can’t find him, why don’t you go straight to the prisoner’s cell?” I asked Coby, “If you want, I can tag along.”

Coby got all big-and-teary-eyed on me and nodded. I think he would’ve hugged me if he could have. The kid seriously isn’t used to people being nice to him.

“Then let’s go.”

Finding the cell was easy. There was only one staircase that led underground and there was only one cell that occupied. The marines didn’t even employ guards. Coby and I approached the captive – it really was Kuro – and Coby put the tray down on the ground and pushed it through the iron bars. Kuro ignored us. Well, he glared at us but that was it.

The cat-themed captain really looked like a cat. I can say as much because he got the same vibe as my cat. Even though he looked roughed up with red lines covering his face and bruises covering his arms. The stripes of the prisoner garb looked more like a zebra than a cat, but the way he hold himself still screamed ‘wary cat’. And not the kind of wary where cats are prepared to run away. He looked like he would jump right into our face if we made a wrong movement.

Coby looked scared and immediately retreated until he hit the wall opposite of Kuro.

“Coby, he can’t do anything to you. You don’t have to be afraid.”

He took a step forward and cleared his throat. “You’re right, Jayna. I am a strong marine and I can handle pirates!”

No, I meant that he can’t attack you if iron bars are keeping him in the cell. Whatever, I guess.

“Right. If you want to be Fleet Admiral, you mustn’t be scared of pirates.” If he was going to interpret what I say this way, I might as well play along.

Coby looked up to the ceiling, his eyes had a look that told me that he was visiting dreamland. At least until Kuro snickered.

“Is there something funny?” Coby’s voice sounded irritated and was louder than before.

Kuro leaned towards us like a cat readying itself to jump on its prey. “A kid like you would never make it to Fleet Admiral. You’ll never get above the level of a simple soldier. Cannon fodder, nothing more, is your future.”

Coby took a few steps forward so that he was standing before Kuro and looking down on him. “I will become Fleet Admiral and I will make sure that people like you will all land in Impel Down! I will be strong enough to make sure justice is enforced!”

I raised an eyebrow. Was that little bit of irritation enough to make Coby forget his fear? That went way too fast.

“And it’s not just me! Helmeppo will also capture his dad and make sure that he gets his punishment and Jayna - er…” Coby looked at me, unsure what to say, before he turned back to Kuro. “Jayna will be a great marine, too!”

Please don’t, Coby. Tell me you didn’t say what I think you said. The way Kuro looked at me spoke volumes of his doubt. You’re really the only one who believes that I will be a good marine, Coby. I hate to tell you this, but you are way off.

“We’re leaving now!” Coby said with more force than necessary when he took my hand and pulled me after him, out of the cellblock.

~*~*~

Kuro wasn’t all that scary, to be honest. Maybe because he was only an East Blue villain but he looked like any normal guy with small, evil eyes. He was just a butler that was ready to kill someone for money. He didn’t have anything special going for him, just a bit of speed and more than one sword. If you could call his claws swords, that was up for debate.

 “… and then I told him that he can’t look down on us! Because we’re going to be good marines!” Coby boasted, chest swollen with pride.

Helmeppo looked caught between caring and being bored to death. “I have my doubts about the good marine part. How are we supposed to get to the top if we’re stuck cleaning the ship?”

Coby clenched his fists, “Helmeppo! We can’t just stop believing in ourselves! Jayna started out as a chore boy… girl… too, and now she is an official recruit!”

You realize that’s only one step better than you are, don’t you? “Please don’t call me that.” I feel incompetent and a marine recruit is absolutely not what I want to be, anyway.

Coby was staring at me intensely and Helmeppo was semi-interestedly doing the same.

“What?”

“Jayna, how did you get your promotion?” Coby fell to his knees and bowed. Please don’t do that, get up immediately. Stop embarrassing us all. “Please teach us!”

Will you get up when I tell you? “Garp wants to see that you really want to be a marine. If you show him that you would do anything for your dreams, he’ll do whatever he can to help you achieve that dream.”

Coby was still kneeling in front of me. What else do you want me to say?! “How about you start training on your own at night? I’m pretty sure that will help.”

“Train? With what? Where?” Helmeppo leaned forward, clearly interested now.

Coby jumped up, stars in his eyes, mouth wide open in glee. “You’ll join, Helmeppo? Let’s do this all together!”

How did I get pulled into this? I already have to work out more than you with my extra rounds as a marine recruit and the god awful sets of push-ups. “Fine. We’ll meet after sundown outside of the  building and do some exercises and when we leave, we’ll do the same in the storage room. Okay?”

“Yeah!” both boys shouted and Coby pumped his  fists up into the air.

One part of me told me that this was a mistake and that I would regret any extra training sessions with every fiber of my being. A bigger part argued that any training would be helpful and would get me closer to Strawhat standards. Also, don’t forget that injuries hurt and any injury that can be avoided due to fighting should be. So training more was a smart idea.

~*~*~

Every part of my being now told me that additional training with Coby and Helmeppo was the worst idea I’ve ever had. Fuck future injuries, I was covered in current bruises that covered most of my arms and I don’t think I can stand up in the near future because my legs had enough of running in circles.

“This feels awesome!” Coby shouted, lying next to me. I turned my head to see him smile, even after Helmeppo kicked him in his right side. I would’ve kicked him, too, if my legs would’ve worked.

Turning away from Coby, I noticed that something moved on the roofs of the nearest building. Either I was imagining things or I saw a fedora disappear into the dark. Really? Did Garp already tell the fedora ninja that is basically his right hand man to have an eye on us and our progress? I just hope he doesn’t appear behind me if I decide to let a katana disappear from the weaponry. It was scary enough when I played with one and he suddenly stood behind me.

After a  while of nothing but breathing, Coby spoke up again: “I like this base, you know? It’s in a fun town and the people are nice. I really would like to spend more time here, but if we get moving tomorrow, it means that we’ll get closer to the headquarters and our goal to become great marines. Do you think we can lead marine bases ourselves one day? That would be really cool…”

The sooner we leave, the sooner I can join Luffy on his adventure. Kuro behind bars already shows that he was here and I don’t have any time to lose to catch up. As long as I join during the East Blue arc, I am on a somehow acceptable level, fighting-ability-wise. If I want to join later, Luffy might not be too interested in me as a possible teammate. I wonder how many days I’m still behind the original adventure. It can’t be too many, I think. Kuro is still here. If it had taken more than a week, he’d probably already be on his way to some marine prison. Or maybe he’d already have escaped. Who knows what he did after Luffy punched him into defeat.

“We’ll leave if you don’t start moving soon,” Helmeppo nagged, standing over me and leaning down, hands on his hip.

I waved him off. “Go ahead, I’ll stay here for a bit longer. Looking at the stars and enjoying the wind.”

Helmeppo shrugged and walked off and with him, Coby left, too.

Cobart was most likely gone as well since I didn’t see any more movement on the roof and there was no more training for him to observe.

I sat up slowly and paused, listening to my surroundings. At first, I could still hear Coby and Helmeppo talking to each other, but that became more and more silent with time until their voices disappeared completely.

I stood up and began walking. The base seemed completely deserted at night, there was not even a guard at the gate. It was still a surprise that no one guarded the entrance to the prison, even more so since they currently held a pirate that was known in the East Blue and had a long-lasting career going.

I took a look into the next small office and found the keys to the whole complex as well as an oil lamp and a lgihter to ignite it. How careless were those marines? Well, better for me, anyway. I made my way down the stairs towards one person that might help me with some questions I had.

I don’t know whether Kuro woke up because he heard my steps or if it was just his cat persona that kept him awake, but he was eyeing me suspiciously when I stopped in front of his cell.

He didn’t say anything to me and I did not say anything either. Then after a staring contest, I finally asked my question. “How long have you been sitting here already?”

He pulled up an eyebrow. “What’s it to you?”

“Just tell me already. How long has it been since Strawhat kicked your butt?”

His second eyebrow joined the first one in the lifted position. “Oh-ho, now here I thought the marines said they defeated me themselves?”

I shrugged. “Are you going to answer my question?” I pulled out the keys from behind my back. “You might get something in return.”

Kuro scanned me from head to toe several times. “I don’t believe that you’ll set me free. And if you do, you’re going to kill me. I don’t trust people like you. You’re no real marine, are you?”

There was a light splutter when he spoke which was completely off-character for the cat pirate captain. Did I throw him off somehow? 

“No real marine?”

His chuckled sounded forced. “You’re one of his men, aren’t you? Spies, looking for information. Trying to close leaks. Are you working for the same boss as the Vergo guy?”

Vergo?! How did Kuro know about _him_ of all people?! This was way too early to be relevant! He shouldn’t know a thing! He was just a minor villain needed to kickstart the real adventure.

“I see you know the name. So you do have the same boss.”

“I don’t know anything about what happened between you and Vergo, except for the part you just let slip on your own. And I don’t work for Doflamingo.” I sat down on the ground, putting the lamp between me and Kuro’s cell, but kept the keys in my hand and out of the pirate’s reach. “I only wanted to know about Luffy and how far he’s from here already. But I will give you these keys if you tell me your story.”

Kuro began to laugh. “I don’t believe you. You know too much to live if you know who is behind Vergo and other recruits that work their way up in the marine ranks. I’ll die anytime now, won’t I?”

I didn’t see any reason to try and convince him of my real intentions, but he seemed willing to tell me things anyway. If the way he dramatically hold himself together while laughing was a sign.

“Look, I know that you guys have freed Shiki when Vergo had the chance to visit Impel Down years ago and that he still holds contact to Shiki. I was lucky to escape back then since that spy bastard  was just too good for his lousy rank. He was no officer by any East Blue standards back then. I was surprised that it took you people so long to track me down and kill me for knowing your plans, I thought you’d come after me as soon as I managed to escape the marine ship. It’s such an irony that I run into you again after I thought the air was clear and you all forgot about me. Just kill me already.”

Okaaaaaay, this was something I did not expect to hear. Doflamingo and Vergo in cahoots with Shiki? The Shiki from Strong World? What is going on here? I am sure this was not the original backstory of Kuro – or at least it was never told with so much detail. No wonder the guy thought he’d die soon, now that the marines caught him again. Well, he’d probably be executed anyway and if not, sitting in prison for your whole life was no real alternative to that.

“You forgot something. Strawhat?”

Kuro looked at me as if I was crazy for asking that question after his story. I stood up, sure I wouldn’t get an answer after all he did was stare. I took the lamp and started walking.

“… Three days ago.”

I stopped in my track and turned around. “Thank you,” I said smiling. Taking out the keys again, I prepared to throw them into his cell.

“Don’t! I’d rather stay in here.” Oh? You still don’t trust me? Ah well, better that way. I won’t have to get an alibi if the pirate is not freed.

“Suit yourself. Enjoy your stay.”

On my way back out, I put the keys and the oil lamp back to where I had found them and walked to my room. Three days to catch up with. Three days to be where? The Baratie? Hmm, maybe Garp can be begged into a visit, he likes food just as much as Luffy does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everbody! Again no time to go through the chapter and find possible typoes and mistakes, but I hope there are not many in this chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The next morning began way too early when Nick woke me up at the crack of dawn. If I had to guess, I’d say it was around 4.30 am. All that I remember was Nick gently guiding me away from running into walls and at some point, he put a toothbrush into my left hand. Coby and Helmeppo got the same treatment.

“I wath not made for foo hourf of fleep,” Helmeppo complained with a toothpaste foam filled mouth.

“Foo hours?” I rinsed my mouth, “It feels like I only got five minutes.”

 Coby’s head hit the sink and he stayed down, groaning.

Someone knocked and when we turned around, we saw Nick leaning against the doorframe. “Everyone ready for some morning exercise?”

Something within me wondered why I didn’t drown me on my first day in this world.

Helmeppo shared that thought with me if his facial expression was anything to go by. Coby tried to lift his fist and let out a weak ‘yay’.

Nick chuckled lightly. “If you want to save the world from seakings, you have to learn to wake up early. The earlier you start your day, the more you can achieve. Anyway, try not  to be late. The base here starts training in about seven minutes. We’ll meet outside.”

~*~*~

The base fitness plan was about the same as I already experienced on Garp’s ship, excluding the swimming part. We ran in way too many circles and were forced to climb up on ropes and did around hundred sit-ups more than I liked.

I shared a look with Helmeppo and together we looked at Garp who was sitting in a chair, watching us with a lemonade in his hand and donuts on a table next to him. The  donuts vanished one after another with any sign of Garp actually touching them. It was fascinating to say the least. Bogart was nowhere in sight, maybe he was hiding somewhere and doing his ninja imitation. Nick was constantly walking from the kitchen to Garp and back, supplying more lemonade and donuts. That might sound like a relaxing job, but I counted more than sixty plates under the table and I know that Nick already took some back to the kitchen, so I wasn’t sure if I’d rather do the job Nick had or continue training with the marines.

“Everyone! Ten more rounds and then we’ll start combat exercise!” the base leader shouted  to us and everyone answered with a loud “YES!” that made me feel deaf.

Coby was back to his old, not sleep-deprived self. Full of energy he jumped rather than ran his rounds. “Did you hear that? Combat training like real marines!”

I turned to Helmeppo. “What exactly does that entail?”

“Probably just playing around with swords. At least that’s the marines at Shellstown always did.”

Oh. Oooh yes. It’s been too long since I hold a sword in my hands. “Hey wait up, Coby, I’ll do these rounds with you real quick!” Helmeppo looked at me accusingly before he, too, sped up to not be left behind.

Running our rounds, we got into a row with the other marines and waited eagerly for the three guys who distributed swords to come to us.

When they finally pressed a sword in my hands, I was so happy to feel the cloth of the handle and the lack of the sheath. It really has been way too long. I unsheathed the sword a bit. A wonderful oiled blade greeted me with a reflected smile on the metal.

That’s when a pair of other hands clasped the sword and sheathed it again. I looked up and saw Nick’s bandaged face above me. I swore he frowned even though I couldn’t see a thing through his bandages.

“The sharp ones aren’t for you, don’t even think about it. You get a wooden one just like Coby and Helmeppo.” And with that words the sword was ripped out of my hands and I got a wooden replica.

 My excitement cooled down considerably. “What’s this?”

“A wooden sword, perfect for recruits that just start out,” Nick answered in a I-am-your-mother-don’t-dare-to-question-me voice.

“This thing looks like a toy! It’s no bokutou and it is even less of a shinai! It’s just a random cut-out in a diamond shape that has a handle to it! There is not even a sheath to put it in.”

Nick wouldn’t have any of my complaining and just ignored it. “Okay, so Jayna will spare with Coby and I will take Helmeppo. Let’s have a good training session.”

Coby moved to a position opposite of me and trembled with nervousness. He clenched his wooden sword with both hands and held it in front of his body, pointing at me.

“You can start whenever you’re ready,” Nick told Coby who gulped and nodded.

I was still pissed that we had to use these glorified sticks with horrible balancing.

Coby started running towards me and when he was getting closer, he raised his sword above his head. I simply went for a stab to his lower body. I stopped a few centimeters before I hit Coby but the boy couldn’t stop soon enough and ran right into it, ramming the sword into his stomach. I took a step back when his sword fell from his hands. Now I understand why Ichigo-sensei told us to take a step back. It’s not only your opponent that can kill you. Falling swords can be dangerous, too. 

I kneeled down to Coby who was holding his stomach. “Are you alright?”

He uncurled a bit to look at me. “Ow!”

“Talk it off, walk it off. How about we change partners?” Nick said. “I take Coby and Helmeppo duels Jayna.”

The blond eyed me suspiciously. I could see a bruise on his forehead. Seems like he lost his first round. We stood facing each other and waited.

“You can start anytime you want,” I offered.

Helmeppo huffed. “Yeah right. I start and you ram your sword into my stomach, too. No thank you.”

I was a bit at loss on what to do. I don’t think I ever had a lesson on what to do when you had to attack someone who was waiting for you to attack and was wary enough to try and think of a counter while I approached. Normally, we only dealt with the ‘both of you are trying to kill the other person’ or ‘someone is trying to kill you and is stupid about it’ situation. There was the ‘stab someone who doesn’t suspect anything’ scenario, but that wouldn’t work here. I was also not used to walking around with a drawn sword, where do I put it and how to I even initiate an attack like this? Positioning doesn’t work with this piece of trash.

I sighed and decided to start with an offensive position: blade towards Helmeppo, sword back near my right leg. Three steps to reach Helmeppo. Draw with second. Go for a cut that cuts him from lower body to shoulder. Block if necessary, change hands and cut down the same way the sword came. Sounds good.

Helmeppo was still observing me. Good, nothing is going to change if I don’t attack first. First step, Helmeppo tensed. Second, third step. I pulled my sword up with all the power my right hand had and aimed for his hip. Helmeppo tried to imitate my move from before and step me, but I backed up half a step and instead of hitting him, I stopped his sword and pulled it up with my own. Left hand joining the right on the handle of the sword, I got back closer to Helmeppo and pulled down. I hit Helmeppo’s shoulder and it made a ‘crack!’ sound that didn’t sound very healthy.

At least he didn’t let go of his sword. But he did jump on his place, bite his lip and tried to keep his tears from falling.

It’s funny. I always thought that it would be impossible to start such an adventure and be powerful enough to deal with all these One Piece uberhumans. Here I was, winning against Coby and Helmeppo with only one attack. It felt surreal. Of course, those two were weak right now, but they were still potential monsters. And I just managed to defeat both of them.

“Kurakurakura!” I laughed and let go of my sword to hold my stomach with one hand while I used the other to point at Helmeppo. “You should see your face! Kurakurakurakura!”

I realized that the way I laughed was way too weird for my normal standards but maybe it was just the effect that the One Piece world had on me already. Weird laughs for everyone! My glee came to a sudden end with a skull-splitting headache caused by a fist that was definitely infused with Haki.

“A real marine doesn’t laugh at his opponent,” a ruff voice berated me while the fist still put pressure on my head.

I nodded multiple times to show that I got the message and Garp’s fist finally lifted itself away from my head. My hands instantly shot up to the throbbing place and I felt a bump grow in size way too quickly and way too much. After a few seconds, it has already reached the volume of a round, fist-sized rock and it was just as hard.

Nick stood next to me and looked at the big bump Garp has left me. “You should put ice on that. How about we visit the infirmary?” I nodded lightly and Helmeppo, now fully recovered, took the chance to laugh at me as well. “Oh, come on, that was just a light knob. No reason to start crying.”

I was offended, to say the least. That was not just ‘light’ and I was not crying. I may have been whimpering but there were no leaking eyes involved in the situation. I stuck my tongue towards Helmeppo while Nick gently nudged me toward the marine base building.

I don’t know how Nick did it, but he walked me towards the infirmary in under a minute and he did so without taking a wrong turn. Maybe he had been here before and already knew his way around. Or maybe it only shows that marine bases are almost identical around the globe. But would that make much sense? Sure, it would be nice for the marines themselves, but when a pirate once got his hands on a base’s plan, he’d be able to attack the others just as well. Didn’t seem very intelligent. And then there were bases that were just too different from this one for the theory to make sense…

Nick gestured at the bed and I weaved my way around him to get there and sit down. Have I ever said that I love beds? Because I really love beds. I could spend my life in a bed and not move a centimeter. The best part was the fluffy pillow.

Nick handed me some ice cubes wrapped in cloth. “Here. Put that on the swollen part. I’ll be right back with more ice. The nurse should show up any minute, too, if you need her.”

When Nick closed the door, I could’ve sworn that he took something with him as well. The door to the medicine cabinet stood open a bit but the freezer with the icecubes was on the other side of the room.

I stood up and walked over to the cabinet. The first aid kit was open and bandages were missing. Did he really...?

“Nick might be good at organizing but he sure forgets to buy himself his bandages,” Garp’s voice commented behind me. I shuddered. Strange. I was having hallucinations about that old man. Did that happen to Luffy, too, when Garp hit him on the head?

I shook my head and turned back to go sit on the bed. I was clearly in no condition to be wandering around when I was hallucinating. I froze, foot in the air, when I saw to eyes shaped like stars underneath the bed. Garp slowly crawled his way into daylight while I still had my foot in the air and when he got out from under the bed, he sat himself on the bed and looked at me, waiting for something.

I started walking towards the bed again and sat down next to the old man who was still intently staring at me. The next moment, my face was cupped in two very big hands and turned downwards.

Garp ‘hmm’ed a bit and then started poking at the big meat bubble on my head. I hissed and tried to slap away his fingers until he finally let go.

“Well, it looks like there was no permanent damage, bwahaha.” I stared at the old man.

“Really? This was what all this was about? You could’ve just asked.”

“Nah. You young folks always try and act tough. Your head made a cracking sound and it felt all squishy compared to other recruits’ heads, so I was worried. Best to check yourself.”

I put the ice back on the bump before it melted on the sheets. “Stupid old man,” I mumbled to myself, but Garp picked up on it and – oh god, I was facing another ‘fist of love’. I shut my eyes and waited for the impact, but nothing happened.

When I cracked open my left eye, I saw Garp waiting for something and when I opened the other eye, a bit more relaxed, his hands shut forward and grabbed my cheeks and started pulling them sideways.

“Want to say that again, you little brat?” he asked me with an amused undertone in his voice.

Garp could actually control the strength he put into his educational strategies. I didn’t really think this was the case, seeing how Luffy described his childhood and the many dangers Garp threw him in. seeing the whole flashbacks and how Garp gave the kid trio cacti-like towers of bumps on their heads. Getting your cheeks pulled by someone like Garp was no pleasant experience but it was not as painful as I thought it would be.

“You. Ah. A. shtupid. Ohd. Man.” I said as clearly as I could.

Garp stared at me intently and I did my best to stare back with the same intensity. Eventually he let go and leaned back on the bed. I waited for him to do something, but he didn’t move or say anything.  I stood up and moved to the only window in the room. Better than to stare at the walls all the time.

You could see pretty far from the infirmary. It was possible to look over Maple Town, Syrup Village, and even as far as the shore. I even thought I could see a dot that looked like Garp’s marine ship. Oh, never mind. There were two spots. Probably someone else’s ships. Or maybe no ships at all. Who knows. My sight wasn’t the greatest, anyway. I was surprised that I realized that there was something to begin with.

“Want to talk about what you did late at night?” Garp asked me. My heart sunk miles below sea level. I think this was the first time that his voice didn’t have any amused tone to it.

“Just taking a walk,” I answered. I turned towards him and gave him a smile that felt like the ones Nami used before she joined the Strawhats for real. Oh so fake.

Garp didn’t look at me. He was still sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall and arms crossed behind his head. I don’t know ow he did it, but the whole situation put incredible pressure on me. His brows were furrowed. Was he disappointed? What did you expect, old man?! That I just go ‘I was visiting a pirate  to ask about your grandson’s adventure because I still plan to join his pirate crew?’ As if I’d say that. Oh _Please_.

Garp still didn’t move and his mouth stayed in the same diagonal line that expressed how unhappy he was with my answer.

…

_Fine._

“I was visiting a pirate to ask about your grandson’s  adventure because I still plan to join his pirate crew.” 

Garp opened an eye and ‘hmmm’ed. “Can’t change a mind in only a few days. I’ll make you want to stay in the marines for  sure. You’ll see. Bwahahaha!”

Garp stood up and walked over to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes, grinning and full of confidence.

“Now I got to leave. Someone I know got here and I have to greet her,” Garp said with a satisfied smile.

Instead of leaving like any normal person would, Garp displayed how he and Luffy are related by using the window instead of the door. I don’t know which floor we were on, but it was definitely a far way to the ground. Not that that meant anything to the crazy geezer.

I stayed in the infirmary since Nick was bound to return sometime and I did not want to send him on a wild goose chase to find me. That acquaintance of Gar’s also couldn’t be that interesting. Nothing special happened on these islands after Luffy left with Usopp, so whoever made their way here couldn’t possibly be important to me or the Strawhats.

I heard fast footsteps approaching and at first I thought it was Nick who was worried about me and the bump – which has disappeared already; don’t ask me how, the answer is probably ‘Anime’ – but Nick’s footsteps sounded different. These were too clicky-clacky, like a woman in high heels or those shoes that female teachers were and that alert you of their impending presence so you can hide your phone before they confiscate it.  Then the female footsteps were followed by a hoard of boots stomping on the ground and last time I checked, Nick was only one person and not about seven.

A pink-haired woman ripped open the door and stated calmly: “We have a prisoner that needs medical attention. Where’s is the responsible doctor?”

Long pink hair. Magenta suit. What is Hina doing here?

I stared at her and answered with a short ‘Not here. Don’t know where anyone is.’ My mouth was feeling dried out like Alabasta’s desert. Why. This does not make any sense.

Some soldier dragged an unconscious Jango into the room and put him on the bed from which I stood up right in time to not be buried under low-level pirate.

Jango looked not good. He was tied up, but his legs were free so he could run around which was probably how he encountered Hina and her crew. His strange pharaoh-like beard was no longer straight. I didn’t know that it was possible to bind something like that into a knot but someone did it pretty well. It looked tight enough to withstand any attempts to loosen it. His heart glasses were cracked and… were those heart-shaped eyes real?!

Just like anything else, a certain someone showed terrible sense of timing when I felt a paper plane hit my hair and glide down. I grabbed the letter before it caught anyone’s attention. Couldn’t he wait for a better moment?!

“I’ll go look for a nurse,” I said while I slipped out of the room, feeling Hina’s eyes on my back before she turned her attention back on her prisoner. Maybe it was obvious that I was not in fact looking for a nurse. I turned a few corners until I didn’t see anyone nearby.

_‘Sup?_

_How is the adventure going? Are you getting any closer to Luffy? I am waiting, you know. I thought you’d show me how to do a good story and help me out here. It’s not nice to keep people waiting._

_-Your friendly neighborhood Random Omnipotent Being_

“Where did he get the ‘friendly’ part from?” I mumbled to no one in particular.

“Jayna! Are you feeling better?”

I looked up from the letter to see a smiling Coby stand in front of me. He had a big band-aid on his cheek and Helmeppo who stood right behind him wore a similar one on his forehead.

“It was nothing to begin with. Really.”

Both boys looked relieved to hear that and Coby jumped right into the next topic. “Have you seen the marine captain that arrived today? She looks so cool in her coat and I bet she is strong enough to capture vicious pirates like Krieg or Arlong! She came directly from the Grand Line to relocate the captured Kuro. I think she’s ca-”

“Hina came all the way from the Grand Line to pick up Kuro? Why did they send her when they knew that Garp was here already?”

Coby blinked. “So you did meet her! That’s sooo cool! She came by while we trained and she used devilfruit powers to recapture the pirate after he tried to escape. Her arms turned into iron and she just- she just caught him and put him into a giant iron ring so he couldn’t run away anymore!” My completely ignored question didn’t seem to get answered but it was nice to know that Hina was still the Hina I knew from the anime.

I looked at Helmeppo, slightly hoping that he could do something about Coby’s fanboying, but Helmeppo’s eyes took the shape of stars while he listened to Coby tell me about what happened probably ten minutes ago. He might not look it, but he was just as much of an impressable fanboy as Coby.

I don’t think the anime ever really gave much detail about Helmeppo after he and Coby started to seriously train to climb the ranks of the marine system and he hasn’t been important after I switched to the manga. I never expected him to act like Coby and show much admiration for strong marine officers.

“…you holding there?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked at Coby who was pointing at the letter in my hand. “Sorry, what?”

“What are you holding there? Is it something important?” Coby sounded concerned and looked at the note as if it had sharp teeth and would bite me. “Does it have to do with what Vice-Admiral Garp said?”

“What… did Garp tell you?” I wasn’t sure where this was heading. Did the old man say something to the two about me and my plan to join Luffy? Why would he do something like that?

Coby stared at the floor with a face that looked as if he wanted to scare it into submission. His fists were clenched with so much power that I could see the knuckles turn white. Since he didn’t answer, Helmeppo explained the situation, stopping after every few words to chew on his lip.

“He didn’t say it to us, but he was talking to Nick and Cobart. He sounded very serious and mentioned that they should keep an eye on you. Something about leaving the marine.”

I blinked. I blinked again. I took a deep breath. Then, finally, I could make out the meaning behind his words. Garp did what?! He just couldn’t go and tell others what I wanted to do?! No matter how nice Nick was, he was still a marine, he wouldn’t understand my motivation. What if I suddenly get thrown off the ship by other marines who listened in and wanted to prevent more piracy by drowning me before I could commit any pirate-like crimes? Now it will be so much harder to leave when I get a chance! Ugh…

Coby and Helmeppo still looked at me, concern written all over their face. I took another deep breath.

“Don’t worry. Nobody is throwing me out. I won’t leave on my own. Everything will stay like it is right now.” At least until I get a chance to join Luffy. No promises where this change of careers is concerned.

“That’s not a letter of resignation?”

I looked at the letter and its now very crumpled form. “No… No, this is from an acquaintance who just wants to know how I’m doing. Does one of you have a pen I could borrow?”

Helmeppo did carry a blue ink pen with him. I took it and scribbled my reply. I decided to take my time in sending it until the boys were gone. I didn’t feel like explaining why I didn’t send my reply in a conventional way.

This time, I would make sure to fold it into a plane so that it would reach Rob, not like the last time I tried.

_Just you wait, I’ll show you what I can do._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

While I can’t recommend sleeping on the deck of a ship during the day for various reasons – of course the sun, but also Garp and other motivated marines reminding you to continue training – I can tell you that sleeping with an open window was still a pleasant way to get your needed dose of Z’s. The calming sound of waves hitting the metallic body of a ship and the fresh air can help you fall asleep fast and easy and the sleep quality was very good. You might want to close your window if it is so low that the waves hit it and drench your bed in salt water, though. In this very moment, I could feel water tickle my bare feet and I think my blanket got swept away because there was nothing to hide my feet under. I reached for my pillow to pull it over my eyes because the waves reflected the rising sun just right to hit me in the face. One should think that that wouldn’t be possible, but it was happening right now. Instead of feeling the fluffiness of a pillow underneath my fingers, I touched something slippery and definitely not fluffy. Eww, was that seaweed? What is seaweed doing in my bed?  …Hang on, I just realized something. The last time this happened, I was not anywhere near my favorite place. I swear if that shitty R.O.B. was behind this again…

I opened my eyes and sat up. Sure enough, I found myself on another, probably deserted, island, sitting on the beach way too close to the approaching waves. How did that happen, anyway? Let’s see, what happened before I got here?

So, we left the Gecko islands without a new prisoner. Hina assured that she would take Kuro since that was her mission and reason to be in the East Blue. Something about everyone thinking that Garp was back on the Grand Line already. We sat sail for the Red Line, I panicked because we passed Logue Town and were going straight for the mountain instead though Garp said it would still take a while. Then, err… what happened then? My head felt like it would explode any second now, but that might just be from too much sun and general headaches. I really hope it was just my normal headache and not some kind of injury.

I looked around for some clues, but there was not a lot to be seen. Next to my feet was a necklace with what looked like a claw tied to it. Might as well take that along. Maybe if I walk along the beach I’ll find some other clues.

It didn’t take long until I heard a kid scream for help in the distance. I wasn’t really keen on helping the kid, but maybe he knew something about this island and how I got here, so I headed towards the inner part of the island.

The kid was a small boy who got stuck in a hole in the ground and thought that throwing his arms in wild circles might help him escape his situation. He looked just as bad as I did – shirt torn, pants with holes, his red-white cap with pin-ups was pulled over wet black hair that fell into his face despite the headwear. “Help me, auntie! I’m stuck and I think I’ll die if I can’t get out of this hole! Please help me!”

I turned around. No matter how much I wanted to know more about my current situation, this kid looked just as clueless as I was and besides, I don’t help people that indirectly call me old. The kid still shouted at me but the pleas for help turned into something else. I did not like the new variation. “Hey, you old hag! Don’t just leave me here! You’re going to hell if you leave me and that trip will happen soon the way you look!”

“Shut up, you stupid brat! Who are you calling old?! I am just 21, you hear me?!” I stomped back to the brat and was about to hit him on the head. If you learn something from Garp, it’s that it’s okay to hit kids if you pack enough love into your fist. One step away from reaching the kid, I heard something break underneath my feet and suddenly, I was pulled upward and was dangling in a net made of normal rope.

The brat got out of his hole and stuck out his tongue in my direction. An older man with goggles and a aviator’s uniform stepped out of his hiding spot behind a tree and shot me a scrutinizing look.

“Borodo, that’s the fifth one we caught today, but she doesn’t look like she has anything worth money on her,” the kid commented, jumping towards the older man that I guess was Borodo.

He sighed. “Today’s not our lucky day,” he said to the kid and then he turned to me, “Are you with the other three kids? Two of them were wearing marine uniforms and the girl wore a dress that looks like she comes from a nearby island.”

I blinked at the guy. I think he was from one of the movies but I wasn’t quite sure from which. “One boy with glasses and pink hair, the other with a weird chin and blond hair?”

“Akisu, cut her down,” Borodo ordered the little guy who looked kind of sad to let me go already. That’s why I do not like kids. They are all evil.

I hit the ground hard but at least I did not land on my face. Borodo started walking and Akisu followed him, grinning at me. “If you want to see your friends, follow us! We expect you guys to give us some money for our service though!” Evil to the very core.

“What service? To me, you look more like thieves than anything else.” Both stopped walking and turned around grinning. I blinked and suddenly, they jumped into a pose, back to back and tried to look cool.

“I am Borodo!”

“And I am Akisu!”

“And together we are the Thief Siblings!”

They looked at me as if they expected some kind of reaction. Did they want me to burst into applause? Or maybe I should be scared? I clapped my hands and pulled up an eyebrow. The way the angles of their mouths dropped and their arms slowly descended, that was probably not the reaction they wanted to get but I did not care about the self-esteem issues of people that insulted me and then dropped me to the ground like I was a crate full of unimportant trinkets.

“You wanted to show me the way to Coby and Helmeppo,” I reminded them to get them moving again.

~*~*~

Coby and Helmeppo were sitting around a campfire, looking gloomy until we showed up and their expression lightened when they saw me. Coby jumped up while Helmeppo stayed on the ground and was happy with nodding at me.

“Jayna!” Coby threw himself at me and hugged me. “You’re alive!”

Not long if you continue to hug me that hard. I am not getting any air. “I am also happy that you are alive?” It wasn’t meant as a question but that was what it sounded like.

Coby ignored that part and continued to throw information at me which he accompanied with wide hand gestures. “We were so scared when we woke up and you weren’t there. We thought that the storm might’ve washed you up somewhere else or that you might’ve drowned somewhere on the way… but you’re okay and we’re also okay and I’m so happy that nothing bad happened!”

“It would’ve been a shame if the one who’s the reason for us ending up here couldn’t be held responsible because she had died, after all,” Helmeppo added. I was about to shoot back something mean when he began to grin. Just a joke, haha, I see.

“Oh yeah? What did I do? I can’t really remember anything after we left the last island. I think I hit my head somewhere.”

Helmeppo turned away from the fireplace to face me better. “Well, long story short: we set sail together with Captain Hina’s ship, then we got into a storm. We three fell off when a crate hit us and we couldn’t keep our footing because it was so slippery. I almost made it to the ladder when Coby pulled me back down by my ankle. He said that you were the one pulling him away from the ship, so I blame you that I ended up here.”

Oh. Right. That storm. I can remember a bit of that, now that Helmeppo mentioned it. Huh.

No one expected a big storm to hit us in the East Blue and there was so much running around on deck. I think Nick told us to keep a rope in position and it took all three of us to manage it… We really are pathetic by this world’s standards. Anyway, there was something hard that hit us – crate, Helmeppo said. We hit the water really fast and…

“Not fair! Don’t blame me. I was pulled under water, too, and only tried to save myself. If you want to blame someone, blame the person that pulled me down.”

Helmeppo’s eyes wandered to a figure lying next to him. The girl lying next to him looked young. She had dark blond hair that was styled in one large braid. Some hair at the front of her face was sticking out wildly. She wore a yellow dress that was decorated with circles and next to her laid a strange hat with the same circle motive. Apis sure had a thing for circles.

Oh yeah, that’s right. That was Apis, the girl that fled some Marine ship and asked Luffy for help to find a dragon island. Never really liked that arc too well.

Borodo cleared his throat to pull our attention toward him. “So, now that you’ve found yourself, how about you call your superior and tell him about our gracious help? I am sure, he’d want to give us some kind of gift for all the trouble I and my little brother went through.”   

I gave him my best expressionless face. “Well, then tell us how to call the old man when we don’t have any transponder snails on us. Also: you are thieves, it’s the marine’s job to put you in a prison. Sure you want us to call the other marines?”

I heard clothes rub against leaves and earth and then a girly voice. “Thieves…?” I turned around to see that Apis has woken up and was rubbing her eyes. “What do thieves want on a marine ship?”

She yawned while everyone stared at her with varying degrees of surprise. She had some great timing waking up right now. We all watched her as she stood up and tumbled to the nearest tree. Her hand went up to her chest and patted it down, looking for something. “That’s strange… I thought I wore it when I escaped the ship…”

Suddenly her eyes grew big with realization and then fear and she screamed in the highest pitch I heard in this world yet. “WHERE IS MY DRAGON CLAW?!”

She looked around and grew pale. “Who of you stole my drago- my necklace?! Who of you is the thief?!” She pointed at Helmeppo at first, then at Akisu, and finally at Coby.

Her back hit a tree when she walked into it. “Thieves and marines?! Oh no, no, no, no… this can’t be happening!” she stumbled to the next tree and when she bumped into it, to the next one. When she went for the fourth tree, she stumbled over something and fell on her back. She screamed again and crawled away.

“Who are you?!”

I had to switch my position to see whom she was referring to. There, bound to the tree, sat none other than Jango. His glasses were cracked a bit and his prisoner garb had several big rips that exposed his stomach. “I am Captain Jango from the Black Cat pirates.”

You could actually see the different stages Apis went through after that statement. First there was fear because any pirate captain meant trouble to a little girl. Next up was relieved because the pirate couldn’t harm her, bound to a tree as he was. The third emotion was fear again because she remembered there were still thieves a few meters away that could hurt her plus marines whom she just escaped. the whole situation was too much for her because she lost consciousness and fell over.

Coby sprinted to her. “Do you think there is something wrong with her? Maybe she needs help?”

I walked over and closed Apis’s eyes. “Nah, she’s just overloaded. A pirate, two thieves, and three marines was a bit much for her.”

Helmeppo wandered over, arms crossed behind his head lazily. “Shouldn’t she be happy that we marines were there? To protect her or something?”

“She mumbled something about escaping from a marine ship, so I don’t think she was all too happy to see us.”

“Why would she need to escape? Aren’t you guys supposed to help people? She doesn’t look like a criminal.”

I shrugged. “There are some evil marines, there are some good marines. It’s the same with pirates and thieves, ain’t it?”

Borodo looked at me, wondering what I meant and Akisu was looking up to his big brother, not sure what this was all about.

“Big Brother, what are we going to do now?” Akisu asked.

Borodo thought about the right answer for a while. He couldn’t gain much from staying around but since I remember him as a protagonist of a movie, he couldn’t be heartless enough to leave three kids and me on an island, not able to defend themselves well. “I guess we wait until the girl wakes up again and then we’ll see what to do.” Guessed right.

~*~*~

Apis took her time with waking up. It was enough for Akisu to walk back to the thieves’s boat and come back with sausages and bread. Borodo stayed with us to make sure that nobody runs away and he might not get any money for keeping us safe. At least that’s what he said. I did not believe that was the real reason.

Apis only woke up when she smelled the sausage roast over the campfire. She kept her eyes closed but I noticed how she seemed stiffer than before. No person looked so panicked in her sleep.

“Hey girl, I know that you’re awake. I found something that belongs to you,” I told her.

That got her sitting straight in no time. “What?” she asked, dropping all pretense.

I motioned for her to give me her hand and she did so warily. I dropped the dragon claw into her palms and she looked so relieved, all the tension left her shoulders and her eyes became softer than before. “I didn’t lose it, thank goodness.”

Technically, you did lose it since I found it on the beach and you were nowhere near it at that point. “It’s important to you, huh? You seemed really agitated when you didn’t find it around your neck.”

Apis had forgotten about her problems regarding marines when she acted completely normal towards me. “Yes, it is a gift. I can’t lose it. I think it is important in helping a friend.”

“Is that friend a Millennial Dragon?” I asked innocently. Apis stiffened again and I could see some of the earlier distrustful look come back. “I heard that there are some legends about them in this area. Something about Warship Island worshipping the dragons.”

Apis nodded and still seemed to trust me. “Y-Yes, that’s correct. There are a lot of rumors about them. O-O-Of course I haven’t seen one myself. I got this claw from my grandpa.”

Apis was a bad liar. No wonder that the marines from the 8th division took her as a prisoner to get closer to the dragons.

“I would like to see one someday. They are supposed to be big and be feathery. Their feather might make a comfy pillow.” I smiled. Yeah, a pillow would be a really nice idea. The ones the marine gives out aren’t that new and not so fluffy as they could be. Same goes for the blankets. they are no quality work.

“Eh? You want the feathers?” Apis looked confused. “Most people talk about their bones…” She looked down and seemed worried. She was probably thinking about the fat marine officer and that mercenary. Eric? Was that his name? I guess it was. No idea how the fat one was called, though. It has been too long since I have last seen this filler arc.

“Why would I want the bones? I want the feathers because you don’t have to kill the animal to get the feathers. They fall out on their own. Besides, I don’t think that bones can get you eternal youth. You’d need the slip-slip fruit for that. That would be the best choice. Fat, age, and anything else that is unwanted will just fall off. That’s how you do eternal youth and beauty right. Besides, bones are not fluffy so they won’t help me get a good night’s sleep. Being eternally young doesn’t help either because I’d stay awake even longer and live like an owl.”

Apis started laughing, at least my opinion was good for something. That got other people’s attention as well and Coby walked over with a sausage on a stick.

“I bet you’re hungry. This one is for you.”

Apis took the stick with a wide smile. “Thank you!”

While Apis sunk her teeth into the sausage, Coby and I watched her. Coby waited a while until Apis has finished eating and started introducing everyone.

“I am Coby and that’s Jayna. The boy feeding Jango is Helmeppo – you don’t have to be afraid, Jango can’t do anything. We made sure that the rope is tight enough. The other two are Borodo and his younger brother Akisu.”

“I am Apis,” Apis completed the list of introduced people.

“You said something about escaping a marine ship, Apis,” Coby continued, “and don’t misunderstand, we know that not all marines are good, so we want to help you if possible. Please tell us if we can do anything for you.”

Apis looked torn between accepting our help and telling Coby that she was fine and could manage on her own. Her hands wandered to the claw that was already hanging from her neck again.

“I… I need to go back home again,” she said through clenched teeth.

Of course she wouldn’t ask us to help Ryu already. She couldn’t be sure if everyone here would be willing to help and that nobody was after the bones. Coby looked a bit disappointed nonetheless. Maybe he felt that there was more that needed to be done.

“The only ones who can get us to Warship Island are the thief brothers. We don’t have a boat,” I reminded Coby, “but they might do so if they know that there is a reward for their help.”

~*~*~

“So, you said your grandpa will give us a wonderful reward when he sees you come back to Warship Island?” Borodo asked for the twentieth time. He was operating something that looked like a parachute to move the boat we were all onboard of.

“He’ll make sure that you are treated as our guests and give you part of his treasure!” Apis claimed once again.

Akisu who sat behind her looked up from a metal box he was repairing. It was one of those jack-in-a-box toys that some people found funny for a reason I did not quite understand. “I think that this is the first time we’ll ever get something that is worth more than thousand beli.”

Kid, you guys call yourselves thieves with such a low win rate? That’s ridiculous! I might as well qualify myself as a thief for that one time I ate my brother’s chocolates when he had left on a trip for two weeks.

Helmeppo changed the topic from the brothers’ choice of occupation to their various talents because it wasn’t all that comfortable for marines to let criminals talk about their criminal actions in front of you. “Where did you learn to do that?” Helmeppo waved towards the parachute that Borodo used.

The older thief furrowed his brows. “I never did. I can just do it. It’s just how Akisu never needed to be taught how to tinker with machines. He always had this talent to repair anything.”

“I remember how I got my special skill. I woke up after taking a nap and a mushroom had grown on my chin. I thought that it might taste good and I could save money and not buy dinner, so I ate the cap. It tasted awful. And suddenly. I could use hypnosis,” Jango told us from the back seat of the boat.

I was not the only one who looked at him disturbed.

“What did you do with the rest?” Akisu asked fascinated. Helmeppo looked like that was the one question he’d hoped no one would dare to ask.

Jango looked at the kid, seemingly confused. “Why, can’t you see it? It’s still there, growing on my chin.”

Eww. Like… _Eeeewwww_. Something I definitely didn’t need to know and now I can’t un-know it.

Helmeppo turned green and inched farther away from the pirate. “Why did we take him with us again? Couldn’t we have let him on the island?”

Coby sighed. “If we let him on the island, he might die.”

“And we could get problems with Captain Hina since we let her prisoner go. You don’t need to be afraid of Jango, really. He might be weird and have mushrooms growing on his chin… and maybe other places… but he can’t hurt us as long as he doesn’t get a tool to use his hypnosis with. Keep him away from anything bagel-shaped and we’re good,” I added.

 We continued our boat tour to Apis’s home in silence and boredom. The only one who was preoccupied was Apis. She was gazing out to the ocean and I think she was listening to some of the animals around us. I heard her whisper ‘Really?’ and ‘You think so? I don’t know…’ to a very big dark shadow beneath our boat.

~*~*~

When we finally reached Apis’s home island, we had already attracted some villagers. These people don’t seem to have much contact with other islands. Children tried to squeeze their way into the front row but they were held back by wary parents. Only when Apis jumped out of the boat and ran towards the crowd did everyone relax and welcome her back. I glanced toward Coby and Helmeppo. Was I the only one who felt weird, seeing a whole village hug a girl and just standing there with nothing else to do than watch? Apparently, I was the only one.

After the initial welcome wave, the crowd split and let an old man through. Apis squealed and ran towards the senior and hugged him “Grandpa!”

I wasn’t sure whether the old man’s eyes were open or if he could identify the girl only by her voice. “Oh, Apis. Good that you are back home now. We were worried.”

Apis smiled. “My new friends helped me get back home.” She pointed towards us.

I wasn’t sure whether we could really be called friends because all she knew was our names but it doesn’t do to smash a kid’ delusions this early.

Borodo cleared his throat noisily before he got down to business, “Look, Apis’s grandfather. Now that Apis is back home, how about we talk about the business part? See, she promised us a reward. How about you give it to us quickly? Me and my brother have other places to be at.”

Jango raised his hand. “I, too, have other places I need to go.”

“Oh no, you don’t go anywhere on your own,” Helmeppo sneered at the pirate.

The old head of town ignored their bickering and thought about what he could reply to Borodo’s request so long, I wasn’t sure if he hadn’t fallen asleep right there in front of us. “We don’t have much money but if you want, you can have some of my famous pork buns. I can also tell you the story of this island’s kings and queens.”

Borodo looked like he was going to decline and ask for the bit of money the townsfolk could give but he was stopped by Akisu who was pulling on his brother’s jacket and smiling. “Fine. We’ll accept the pork buns,” the thief grumbled.

“Wonderful. How about Apis gives you a village tour and I go home to prepare the food?” the old man smiled.

The village was so small and normal that there was absolutely nothing worthy of notice. They did not even have a restaurant like Syrup village. The village on Warship Island only consisted of small family homes who kept their own farm animals and grew their own vegetables, just enough for every family to get by on. We completed our round within ten minutes and headed for Apis’s home. There, her grandfather was about to put the last few buns in a steamer.

“So, when is the food finished? I’m starving,” Akisu asked the old man.

“It’ll take three to four hours, just enough to tell you our people’s story. Please sit down and make yourself feel at home.”

If someone had recorded the scene, it would’ve been possible to pinpoint the moment when the hope in everyone’s eyes died. Nonetheless, we sat down and played the role of polite guests.

“Our story begins with the first king…” This was going to be a long night.

~*~*~

The first one to leave was Helmeppo. Smart guy found a good excuse to escape this torture of hunger and useless information. “I’m going to ask the villagers if they have a transponder snail. I’ll try to call Garp and get us off this island.”

Coby beamed at his friend, “That’s a great idea! You memorized the number of the ship’s transponder snail, I never thought of that.”

Helmeppo’s smile wavered but still nodded. You have no idea what number to call, even if you find a snail, huh? Still nice escape plan.

That was when the old man reached the twelfth king and his children.

When the story reached the fourteenth generation, I noticed that Apis was not here suffering with us. Now that I think of it, she wasn’t here at the start either. She knew what was coming and didn’t warn us. Who does that?!

Jango sneaked out with the excuse of needing to visit the toilet. He never came back and Coby was about to go look after him, but I wouldn’t let the kid escape and leave me here, so I pulled Coby back down. “Easy there. He has no weapons and looks strange. No villager will help a crazy guy like him and he won’t be able to leave the island since he can’t operate Borodo’s parachute system. We’ll find him later.”

I know I am not a good person, you don’t have to tell me.

Getting to the hundred and sixth generation, the Borodo brothers stood up. “We’re going to check on our ship, just in case. It looks like a storm is coming.”

Dirty liars. There was not a cloud in the sky.

Coby next to me was almost falling asleep just like our storyteller himself.

“Hey, I think I’ll keep an eye on the thieves. You stay here and give the grandpa the feeling that his stories are still appreciated,” I whispered.

“Hu-h? uh-huh…” Coby’s head fell but shot up just as fast in the attempt to stay awake.

I took that as a ‘go ahead’ and left the room.    

I closed the door behind me and saw Borodo’s jacket disappearing around a corner. I could hear Akisu complaining about being hungry. The kid was not the only one around that needed to fill his stomach. I felt like the last time I ate something was a day ago. If the thieves went for the pork buns and ate them, sharing with none of us, I would never forgive myself.

I followed them and kept some distance until I heard Apis yelp and Akisu scolding her.

Borodo was holding Apis up by only her foot while Akisu stood under her. Next to the group lay a big sack full of what I guess was our long-awaited meal.

Akisu was going on about how stealing was their job and that it’s unfair to take food from starving people. “What do you want with so many pork buns anyway?” the boy asked incredulously.

“I was hungry!” the girl pouted.

“No way you were going to eat them all by yourself. That’s enough to feed a dragon,” the boy argued. Apis froze and stared.

“That’s probably because she wanted to feed a dragon,” I said and pulled all the attention towards me.

Apis was inhaling and looked like she was about to scream or shout at me at the highest volume she could manage but Borodo already sensed it coming and slapped his hand on her mouth. Apis let out a lot of angry ‘hmm hmmh hmm!!’s but luckily she didn’t think of biting Borodo to make him let her go.

I opened the bag and took out three buns. “One for Akisu, one for Borodo, and one for you, Apis.”

I put another four back into the steamer for the rest that was still around and took one last one for me.

“Everyone gets one and there is enough for Apis’s dragon friend.”  I took the bag and handed it to a surprised Borodo who let go of Apis.

“Hey! Why am I the one who has to carry the food?” Borodo snapped at me.

“Because you are the only one who has the muscles for the job. Or do you want to let Apis carry the sack?” I grinned when Borodo sighed and began walking out of the storage room. Apis still wore a distrustful look but she began to walk towards the hidden path that led to Ryu.

Apis led us through the mountains and it was just as rocky a path as it might sound. Where I am from, there was a word that described the action of taking a trip through the rougher parts of nature, just like what we did right now, and I believe that most people would’ve voted for it as national sport. I was not one of these people. I would describe myself as the exact opposite. When we finally reached the cave in which Ryu lived, I was happy that the mountain climbing was finally over and I vowed to myself that I would not move back down on foot again.

“It’s really a dragon…” Borodo mumbled next to me. I heard a ‘thump’ when the sack he was carrying slipped his hands and hit the ground.

Ryu was big. He was big enough to make the cave we were in appear small. His feathered body was bigger than some of the ships I have seen pass by. He could’ve easily preyed on seakings. And his eyes even though they never opened completely were as big as a wheel on a standard mountain bike.

Apis took the sack and dragged it to the dragon. “Ryu, it’s me! I brought you something to eat. My grandfather made his pork buns again. Open your mouth.”

The dragon blinked slowly and opened his mouth until it was enough for Apis to walk into it. it was fascinating to see how she just let all the pork buns roll out of the sack and into Ryu’s mouth where they build a pile that was gone as soon as Ryu closed his mouth again, not one trace left. The dragon did not even chew.

Apis hugged Ryu before she turned around again and introduced us, “This is Ryu. He’s a millennial dragon and my friend.”

Akisu stopped hiding behind Borodo and took a few steps toward the dragon to get a better look at it. Borodo was still staring with a wide-open mouth. Are we supposed to say something to the dragon? Maybe introduce us?

“Hi Ryu,” someone said behind me. Strange, there should not be anyone. When I turned around, Helmeppo stood at the opening of the cave and grinned.

I blinked. “What are you doing here?”

He grinned even wider. “I was hungry so I wanted to check on the pork buns. That’s when I saw you four walk away and after I got me my bun, I decided to follow you. I bumped into Jango. He’s still on his way up here. The guy refuses to stop walking backwards. Where’s Coby?”

Someone here was definitely more of a secret agent than he looked. That was also the most Luffy-like response to Ryu I could imagine. I felt strange thinking that. Maybe it was Garp’s influence on us all. We’ll know for sure if we start falling asleep while eating.

“Coby’s probably still with the old man, listening to the story.” I shrugged.

Helmeppo furrowed his brows and was opening his mouth to say something but he was interrupted by Akisu, “Why is Ryu living in this cave? It doesn’t look all that comfortable.”

Apis gave Ryu a concerned look before she solemnly said, “Ryu lost his friends and has been living here since then. I found him and take care of him. He said he wants to see his friends again and I tried to find them but then I ran into some marines and everything got complicated…”

For some reason Apis looked at me with new found energy. “The seaking said that you are a nice person and helped him multiple times. He said he got to be with the seaking girl he loves because you did him a huge favor. He thinks you can help me and Ryu, too. So could you please help us find the dragon’s nest Ryu wants to find?” Apis’s voice grew louder and louder the longer she talked until she screamed at me.

I had no idea what this was about. I never helped any seaking and I was definitely not someone who was a dating guru. Whoever told her something like that and why would that qualify me for helping a dragon find his nest?!

I did an impersonation of a fish to show just how happy I was to be asked for such a favor. Mouth open. Mouth closed. Mouth open. Mouth closed again.

Helmeppo watched a while and shrugged, turning to Apis. “We all can help you. But how about you tell us why the other marines were after you?”

“And tell us why you can talk to the dragon!” Akisu added. Borodo looked at his younger sibling with one eyebrow pulled upward. “She said that the dragon talked to her. I want to know how she does it.”

Apis looked at every single one of us and then began to tell her story, how she ate a devilfruit that allows her to talk to animals, all about the marine ‘admiral’ Nelson Royale who wanted the dragon bones for eternal life and the mercenary Eric that has been going after her and how she escaped them.

“Brother, let’s help her ad the dragon! Pleeeeeease?” Akisu used the puppy-eyed look on Borodo but it didn’t seem to be necessary because the older brother, too, looked like he thought that was the only correct thing to do. Helmeppo felt all heroic as well and nodded at me with a look in his eyes that transmitted a never-ending stream of ‘let’s do it’ speeches. Why was everyone feeling so heroic today?

“Fine,” I said, standing up. Then let’s find this stupid island. But first, we’ll need a way to get Ryu down from this island.

Akisu jumped up, “No problem! I’ll design a raft with wheels so we can use it on land and on sea. Borodo can get some extra parachutes so we can control the raft!” With that, Borodo took Akisu’s hand and both disappeared back into the mountain forest.

I looked at Helmeppo and Apis. “Sooo… I guess we’ll try to get enough wood for whatever Akisu plans?” How we could accomplish that was still open for debate. If I remember correctly, Ryu did have some strength left and he had a good bite, so maybe… “Can we ask Ryu to bite down some trees?” I proposed.

Apis stomped me on the foot. “Ryu is an old person! You don’t ask seniors to do your work!”

Helmeppo looked at the forest. “There was a storm not too long ago. Maybe it knocked down some trees that we can use.”

I sighed. Fine. We’ll do it the hard way, then.

“Woah! It’s a- a- a re-real dragon?!” I turned my head just in time to see Jango fall off the edge.

~*~*~

I don’t know how, but we did it. we have built a vehicle that was able to transport Ryu and we even got him up there. Battleship Island was also perfectly shaped as a ramp to get us to the ocean, so we had no need to climb down the mountain again. I told you I wouldn’t move down on my own feet anymore.

Borodo and Apis were consulting a map of all the nearby islands to narrow down where the dragon’s nest could possibly be and it wasn’t looking too good there. I never paid much attention to the filler arcs but something told me that we didn’t have to move far to find the nest. “Could it be somewhere on this island?”

Apis looked up from the map. “No. I searched this island already and there are no other dragons and no sign of a nest. We need to look somewhere else. Ryu says that he can’t remember much…”

Of course, the senile lizard is not much of a help. “Are you sure that you don’t know anything? No hint?”

“The marines are here! They just entered the village and a ship is circling the island!” Akisu ran towards his brother and started to pull him up the vehicle.

Helmeppo appeared now, too, and confirmed what the boy had already said, “It’s the 8th division. I was hoping for Garp but we didn’t get lucky.”

We packed the few things we had secured and everyone took their place next to Ryu.

Helmeppo leaned towards me, “Why do I have the feeling that we forgot something? Something important?”

I went through my mental list. We got a raft-like vehicle that works. We got the dragon. we got the map. We have Borodo doing his parachute thing. Apis is still wearing her necklace. Is everyone on board? Helmeppo, Apis, Borodo, Akisu, Ryu… where was Jango?! Oh, never mind, he just sank into Ryu’s feathers.

“I don’t think we’re missing anything…” I said but Helmeppo wouldn’t stop pondering.

“Everyone, grab something and hold onto it as if your life depended on it, we’re going down!” Borodo warned us and his last few words were already ripped away by the wind we created with our descent.

I buried my hands in Ryu’s feathers and I could feel them cutting into my fingers from all the force I put into the grip.

I could hear three people scream when we hit the first edge and started to soar through the sky with no ground immediately beneath us.

One was high-pitched and girly, Apis. Another was also high-pitched yet it sounded like it was used to adventures that sent you flying, so I guessed that this one was Akisu. The other one was not so shrill but still ear-piercing and I looked toward Helmeppo. The poor guy was crying but his mouth was shut so it couldn’t be him and I didn’t believe that Borodo could produce such sounds. Maybe it was Coby…shit.

“Helmeppo! We forgot to wake up Coby!!”

Helmeppo’s eyes went wide with horror. He looked towards the village and if I could read his thoughts, I was sure he was just about to jump off and go back. Since that would be very, very stupid, I let go of one feather and reached out for his shirt just in time to catch him after he let go and was blown away by the wind.

The last screaming voice that I heard was now also filled with pain because, dang, it hurts to feel like your arm is being ripped out. It was on fire with all the sudden weight I had to catch.

Couldn’t the idiot wait until we had something solid underneath us? Garp wouldn’t let me get away alive if he knew I didn’t do anything to save Helmeppo’s life.

The wagon and Helmeppo’s face hit solid stone soon once again and both did not have a very smooth landing. The one thing that counts though is that we kept moving.

“What is happening to Helmeppo?” Borodo shouted from his position at the front.

“He’s going for a face peeling!” I shouted back. Borodo turned around to see what was going on because apparently my answer was not informing enough. He turned back promptly when we hit a tree and started swerving.

Then we went flying one more time and this time, we left the island for real. I glanced at Helmeppo to see how he was doing and caught a glimpse at the marine ship. The one who was in charge of the ship – clearly distinguishable by actual facial features that were not shadowed by his marine cap – was gaping at us. For a second I saw a door slam open and some lilac hair poking out but we were gone before I could make out if that really was Eric. Then, out of range of the marine ship, we hit water and before anyone could set course for us, the parachutes have filled with air again and were pulling us along, away from the marine ship.

Oh, that reminds me of something. “Hey, be careful. We’re close to the Calm Belt. If we end up in there, we won’t be able to come out.”

Borodo’s eyes widened and he nodded, changing our course carefully.

~*~*~

“I told you, Coby is fine. He is a marine, they are marines. They won’t hurt him without a reason. They probably picked him up and he’s on their ship, doing what he always does on Garp’s,” I repeated for the most likely hundredth time while Helmeppo walked his circle on the raft, gnawing on his thumb nail.

This time he didn’t answer. No ‘We just left him!’, no ‘What if they did do something to him?’, and nothing anywhere near ‘We have to go back!’. Just him walking his circles around the dragon and making everyone else nervous.

It was hard to sleep when the raft was moving so much, even if you haven’t had any sleep in the last night and you have a dragon buddy who is so fluffy it feels like a dream.

Borodo was holding us on course while Jango tried to catch some of the smaller fish that swam by. Or the fish that flew by. They were all around us and I was glad that they were there because just a while ago, Ryu remembered where the story needed him to go because the fish looked like small dragons to his old eyes.

I didn’t remember that it took Luffy and his friends long to find the dragon island, but we took so long that it was almost ridiculous. We sailed and sailed and sailed there was just no end in sight. It felt even longer because Helmeppo was panicking so much.

 “Apis, is it normal for the air around here to show you your own reflection?” Borodo asked confused.

The girl looked at the strange phenomenon just ahead of us. The air was acting like a mirror and reflected our image back at us. “Not that I know of...” She sounded not very adventurous. Neither was I but, hey, at least we’ve found what we were looking for.

“Probably a way to protect the nest? So we can’t see it?” I suggested while everyone around me started panicking, except for Jango who turned his back on the barrier. I guess it was some ‘going backwards’ variation.

Borodo gulped but kept the course and soon we disappeared into the storm that surrounded the island. I will not tell you about the storm and how we screamed every time we thought we would capsize and sink. I will not tell you how I tried to block waves with Ryu’s big wings and was pulled out of there by Apis and Helmeppo while Jango was not bothered even though he pulled the same stunt. It was a very boring storm and nothing important happened. The only thing that matters was that we made it to the island without losing anyone.

The lost city was eerily silent yet it was also very calming. Walking through its ruins was a little like playing an adventure game with muted sound. Or it would’ve been that way if the guys did not sound like they were dying from overexertion behind me. We didn’t get very far at once because someone complained every five minutes and requests for a pause were on an all time high.

 Sitting next to one of the abandoned marble buildings, I wondered why the former inhabitants left so much when they left. There were pots and pans scattered in the kitchen and most of the furniture was completely undamaged. They left their lives here and left to begin anew but why? I saw Akisu pick up some metallic toy and hide it under his hat. Apis was playing with toys that depicted dragons and when Ryu opened his eye lazily, she ran to him and showed him what she had found. I held my breath when I saw it hanging in one of the houses. A sword. A katana. Right there with no one else to claim it. I walked up to it and took it from the wall. It was hard to unsheathe it but in the end, I could get it out.

It wasn’t the most beautiful sword and it was not the best taken care of sword, obviously since no one has cared for it the last few centuries. It did not reflect the light as it should and looked like it needed a lot of polishing to get anywhere near shiny. I swung it a couple of times. Good balance, nice. The steel blade was heavier than what I was used to. It might take a while until I could use this katana in battle without any problems. I won’t be able to swing it too long as well but that was a problem to worry about when I got there. I’ll take it with me. Nick couldn’t say anything against me practicing with my own sword, hah.

“That’s a nice sword,” Jango said next to me and I was so close to jumping to the ceiling. “It’s better than the ones my captain used.”

I eyed him suspiciously, “And you know your way around swords because…?”

“I am a pirate. We fight with swords and guns most of the time. Of course I’d be able to tell a good blade from a bad one.”

I didn’t stop observing Jango. It was not that I didn’t trust him. I just didn’t trust him if I don’t know what he has been up to. Maybe this wasn’t the only weapon lying around and he could’ve picked up something as well.

Outside, Apis and Akisu were playing a game that required them to throw rings at miniature dragon statues to score points. Akisu was winning and boasting about it while Apis pouted. We better start walking again before Apis causes a blood bath with Akisu as the first victim.

Some birds joined us and told us to head to the ruins on top of the island as if we didn’t do that already.

When we reached the building, I took some steps back. Enough to be nowhere near the area that would cave in. When Jango turned and saw me, he started to walk in my direction. That’s exactly when Apis tried to put the claw into the dent where it belonged and the ground broke.

Jango’s eyes jumped out of his skull when he began to sprint away and somehow he managed to get to safety while everyone else fell.

“Wow, I was so lucky that this one plant caught my interest and I was so far away from the others,” I said as a lazy attempt to make Jango think that no, I did not know this would happen.

“Sure. And I am a marine,” Jango replied. Oh boy, if you knew…

Our conversation was cut short by the others shouting from downstairs. “Woah, look at all those paintings on the wall,” Helmeppo said.

“Hey, isn’t that the island we’re on right now? And that is Warship island!” Akisu wondered.

“I guess you’re all okay if you can appreciate art,” I shouted into the hole, making sure to be far enough from the edge. I didn’t want to risk falling when more stones gave way.

“But why… why are the dragons painted on Warship Island? That doesn’t make any sense! Ryu! Hey, Ryu! This is the island you wanted to go to, right? Right?!” Apis’s voice went away for a while and the whole group was silent.

“This… is not the place we’re looking for…” Apis sounded like she was about to cry.

 “You’re right where I want you, don’t move,” a cold and calculating voice said. I turned around and saw Eric approaching.

I turned around. “You’re ERIC THE MERCENARY aren’t you?” I grinned at him.

He stopped in his track and frowned. I hoped the others realized that they have to move. Fast.

I glanced at Jango who – wait, he’s running away?! What’s up with that?! Okay, I can handle this. I don’t have to fight the guy, I barely need to stall him. I can do this. It’s just like writing a term paper. I can and I will bullshit my way out of this.

“So, you’re after the dragon bones?” I asked him.

He only raised his eyebrow. “And I will get them. Now move out of the way or I will attack.”

I raised my hands, showing him open palms. “Wow, don’t. It’s fine, I have no problem with that.”

I could hear Apis gasping and someone slamming a hand on her mouth. It made that noise like someone got slapped. Did not sound very nice.

“You see, I have a better idea than to go after this one dragon.”

Eric’s eyes and his attention were now fixed on me but there was still a certain wariness in them. I can do this. I know I can.

“You see, the dragon here is pretty old and he’ll die soon. Since he is going to die anyway, we can use it to our advantage. The dragon is looking for the dragon’s nest. Now think about it: kill this one and get the bones or raid the nest and get even more bones? Which is the better deal? Of course, you might not need so many bones, but it would save you the effort to betray Nelson and take the bones before he does. Keep your image up and get what you want. Collect even more bones and sell them to highest bidder! Ain’t that an idea worth considering?”

Eric did not react. Why isn’t he saying anything?! Give me a reaction you ice block!

“Besides, you don’t need to hurry. It’s not like they can PUNCH a HOLE into the stone WALL, now that would be ridiculous. Everyone down there is trapped and I don’t think your marine subordinates will come anywhere near this island. If they would, they’d be here next to you or their ship would be docking somewhere nearby.”

Finally Eric said something, “Your plan makes sense. I like it.” He moved closer to me, more relaxed than before and he smiled a very stretched, forced smile.

I began to walk towards him. That’s what they always said. Move towards your enemy, take away his chance to get a chance to measure the distance between you. Shorten his time to come up with an action. If I was lucky, he would just like to shake my hand to seal the deal.

He extended a hand, okay he wants to be a friendly sportsman. Let’s hunt dragons together. I was about to take his hand when I saw his other one moving in a fast upwards movement. “Sickle sickle…” I slammed my sword hilt down on his hand  “Wind Scythe!”

The ground behind Eric was sliced open by his devilfruit-powered attack. I was suddenly glad that I reacted fast enough. That reminds me this fight is not over. Eric was looking behind him, watching his attack unwind behind him.

I grabbed his other hand that was still extended in my direction and slammed it against his thigh, making sure that I locked it correctly. Then I took my sword and placed it near his stomach. “One wrong move and I will make sure you’ll bleed out,” I snarled at him. His free hand twitch but he didn’t move.

We stood still like statues for a while until we heard a big bang and a wall collapsed. The ground shook pretty badly and it was hard to keep my balance. When I looked back to Eric, my chin was ripped up by a sudden impact. That… that _hurt_. It was not sickle fruit powers. If it had been, I wouldn’t have a chin anymore. That felt more like a shoe. I… I never expected this fingernail freak to attack Sanji-style. I touched my chin to make sure that nothing serious has happened to it and slowly let my head sink back into… shit, I dropped my sword.

“Sickle Sickle…” Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit shit. What do I do?! Ah. Riiiight.

I took a step towards Eric and locked his leg. Right before his hand was anywhere near me, I moved just right to give him a trip to the ground. The whirlwind cut some hair near my ear. Phew, that was way too close.

“Let me return a favor,” I told Eric. While he was still lying on the ground I had a chance to get some damage in.

If someone tells you that it is not satisfying to stomp someone’s face in: they’re lying. It was the greatest thing I felt in the whole fight. It was such a great feeling to hear the crunch of a breaking nose under my shoes while laughing like a maniac. “Kurakurakura! How does that feel, you asshole? Is it fun to be on the receiving end? Kurakuraaaaah!”

 I shouldn’t have let go of Eric’s hand. I shoul’ve paid more attention because now I had his claws deep in my leg. Not around it, in it. he was drawing blood with those long murder weapons. My friends used to tell me that my nails were dangerous but this, this was ridiculous. My pant leg was already turning red. Okay, calm down. Just… cut the hand off? That sounded a bit brutal, but hey, better than nothing. Maybe he loosened his grip if he thought he was in danger of losing a limb. Where was the damn sword?

I looked around and there it was, only a small distance away. I could crouch and get it….

Just as I touched the sword, Eric flung me into the next tree. My breath was knocked out and my back suddenly felt like it was on fire. I wanted to stay where I was and hope that the pain went away but I already saw how Eric was getting back up and dusting off his clothes. No time to relax.

I pulled myself up with the low branches of the tree. I was so glad that none of them had impaled me on impact. Eric began to move. He did not look like he was happy to see that I was still up and going. I secured my sword. Eric was about fifteen steps away. How far did he throw me?! And that from his position. This was seriously ridiculous. And it was my chance.

I took a deep breath and broke the one rule Ichigo-sensei really cared about. I bolted. I ran at a speed I never thought was actually possible for me and I even managed to run down the mountain without tripping and snowballing down the ruins.

Trees and buildings next to me were cut into multiple pieces but I couldn’t care less about them. I just ran faster. My bloody leg hurt. It felt like a hive worth of fire ants have decided to attack it all at once.

I passed another white building when someone pulled me into a street right of me forcefully. I only saw black and white stripes at first then I felt a breeze as if someone stopped just there. That’s it. I’m done. Maybe I should’ve just stayed there and died fighting.

“When I say ‘one, two, Jango’ you fall asleep. One, two, Jango!”

Two men were snoring next to me and a wooden ring on a string fell to the floor, stirring up a small dust cloud.

Jango stood there, between me and the sickle sicko. Jango was back. Jango saved my life.

Talk about a sentence I never thought would cross my mind.

 I didn’t think he’d come back. The chance that anyone else in the group would’ve stayed behind to help me was bigger than this weirdo saving me.

The weirdo and the sicko fell down into the dirt almost simultaneously and whirled up more dust. My heart almost stopped before I realized that those whirls had nothing to do with the sickle fruit powers.

I needed to get away before he woke up and wind became a dangerous weapon again. I walked towards Jango and started to pull him by his shirt collar. If he saved me, I should at least get him off the island.

The streets were littered with broken stone from the buildings that Eric had destroyed. Jango was collecting way too many small pieces in his outfit and weighed me down more and more. This couldn’t go on like that. I would never reach the others before Eric woke up.

I looked around. Maybe this houses still hid something that I could use. I dropped Jango and went looking. I checked the nearest house and found nothing but pots and furniture. Another room was filled with two wheelbarrows and fire wood, nothing useful. The next one was full to the brink with old, broken plant pots…. Wait. Wheelbarrows.

~*~*~

It was hard not scream the way down. The streets were straight and no building stood in our way but the speed we reached had to be criminal. No one should travel with this much dangerous acceleration rate. I held on to Jango and wished I could use the man as a break but I knew it would end well. I just hoped that no cabbage salesman came crossing our path.

I would love to know if the raft with Ryu had already reached the sea but I didn’t dare look up high enough to figure it out. We raced down in the wheelbarrow so fast most buildings were just blurs and I couldn’t take it well. It was like a rollercoaster just that I wasn’t sure whether the wheels will last until the end. This thing was old, after all.

The wheelbarrow did not break on its own. We almost made it to the end of the ruins when a big block of stone landed in front of me and Jango and the barrow couldn’t take it and started to tilt forward. The next moment, I didn’t know what was happening. The world was spinning like a carousel that was out of control. I felt stones chip at my skin and leave cuts and then I hit a big stone. Or maybe it was a building. The important thing was that I stopped abruptly. Everything hurt and I felt like puking. Then Jango slammed into me. I really wanted to curl into a ball and pretend I was nothing more than a stone myself. A stone that has probably broken more than just a few bones.

I think I could hear strong winds hit the stone and stone dust rained down on me. Then somebody grabbed me under my arm and started to run.

I could see Eric standing farther up the hill. I don’t know why I felt happy to see that. I stuck out my tongue. He wouldn’t see it but I felt really great about it.

The dragging stopped. A moment afterwards, I saw Borodo move into my view and he lifted me up. “Take her and put her somewhere near Ryu,” the senior thief instructed.

“The birds were right. They look pretty roughed up.” I’ll let that pass without a comment, Apis. Be grateful.

Helmeppo almost dropped me into the water but he managed to pull up the raft. Maybe I should’ve told him that I could get on perfectly fine myself but I felt like acting like a princess that needs help. Soon after, Jango was positioned next to me and the raft began to move.

“We’re going back to Warship Island?” I croaked.

“Yeah. We think that Apis must’ve missed something and you need a doctor.”

“And my brother needs special parts to repair his hand,” Akisu added, sounding grave.

Oh, that’s right. The movie mentioned something about his robotic hand. Did he blow a hole into the massive stone wall with it? Huh…

The storm was just as terrible to cross the second time around.

When we finally got back from the hidden zone, I saw the marine ship waiting nearby but it didn’t move. I thought I saw a head of pink hair next to the officer in charge, waving his arms around aggressively. I didn’t mention anything because everyone else seemed to be obsessed with moving away as fast as possible. Helmeppo and Akisu even paddled. Where did they get the paddles from? They weren’t there when we left Warship Island.

We got close to Warship Island when a fleet of marine ships that displayed the number eight on their sails appeared and blocked our way with a chain system that connected the ships.

“What’s that?” Helmeppo asked.

“Nelson’s tactic that got him so far up marine ranks?” I suggested and earned a panicked look from the kids.

 At least he didn’t fire any cannonballs at us.

“There’s a ship that’s coming closer!” Apis panicked.

I glanced in the direction she was looking. it was the ship that had been waiting for Eric and the sicko with the long nails was standing on board, looking creepily happy. He thinks he has won, huh. “Helmeppo, get ready. You have to fight him and save us all,” I joked.

The blond teen gulped heavily and formed fists in front of his chest. “I am ready! Come at me, you sicko!” It would’ve been cool if he didn’t shake so much.

The ship approached and Eric was getting ready to jump up on our raft. He was getting ready to deliver some evil line and then he fell over and dropped into the water to reveal Coby behind him. Coby with a mace in his hands and wheezing heavily.

The marine officer approached Coby and put his hand on Coby’s shoulder and nodded approvingly. “Men, get that mercenary out of the water and chain him up! It’s time to put an end to this crazy dragon hunt.” The crew saluted and immediately carried out their orders.

I was confused and I am sure that the others including Ryu felt the same way.

“Does anyone have a pair of scissors? I feel like someone needs to cut their monster nails. Now.” I needed to get that off my mind and I had nothing else to say that made sense, so why not?

Before anyone could answer my question, a whale – err I mean a very fat person – hit the water and created a big splash, soaking us all to the bones.

The splash woke up Ryu and suddenly I felt myself fall back when the dragon stood up. Before anyone could react, Ryu let out a loud screech that could burst eardrums.

~*~*~

“Bwahahaha! So you had a fun adventure and found this dragon nest?” Garp asked us with a wide grin. He acted like it was nothing how he punched that fat Nelson so far and saved us all from becoming swiss cheese lookalikes.

Dr Endou was buzzing around us and particularly me, telling us to not pull any similar stunts in the future. As if I could with two broken ribs and several cuts and what happened to my leg.

I looked nervously towards Helmeppo and then at Coby. “I guess it was fun?”

Helmeppo nodded and smiled. Garp did the same. Then he stood up, took the one step that had separated us before and hit us so hard on the heads that it felt like my skull got another crack. “DON’T DO THAT AGAIN!”

Then he turned to Coby. “And you told a marine officer how to do his job?”

Coby was still frozen in shock from what had happened to me and Helmeppo right now. “Erm, well, I did not say that… I told him that Nelson was no better than pirates like Don Krieg who use their power for selfish goals…”

Garp nodded. “I am proud of you.” And then he hit Coby just as hard as us. “BUT DON’T COMPARE MARINE OFFICERS TO PIRATES!”

Some dragons near us looked up warily and moved closer to their eggs that still needed to hatch.

Apis was sitting a few meters away and I think she was holding back tears. After all we went through, we still couldn’t safe Ryu. He might have taken less damage as in the original story but he was still too old to live long. He still remembered and called his dragon friends and died. He was reborn again but that was not good enough for Apis.

The thief brothers have disappeared into thin air as soon as they could. They were thieves after all. It was better to leave early for them than risk the chance that marines recognized their faces.

“We’ll be leaving soon. Hina has taken her prisoner into custody again and we don’t have any reason to stay longer, too,” Garp informed us, “she’s also taking in Eric the whirlwind. There was a bounty on his head because he killed several innocent bystanders during some of his jobs.”

“Uhm, can I talk to Hina first, please?” I asked, “It’s about Jango. He helped us and he saved me back on the other island. He could’ve just run but he didn’t and ti should count something…”

Garp looked at me intensely before he nodded slowly. “I’ll tell her myself.”

When Garp was about to leave us, a soldier came running with a transponder snail that was ‘buruburu’ing. “Admiral Nelson’s private snail is being called and since he is out of commission I was told to bring it to you, Vice-Admiral Garp.”

Garp lifted an eyebrow when Nelson was called an admiral but did not comment on it. Without giving it any thought, he took the call and was about to state his name when the caller already broke into a report.

“Nelson! This is Nezumi! You hear me? We’ve got problems over here at Cocoyashi – some newbie pirate called Monkey D. Luffy is fighting against Arlong and winning! He’s winning and we can’t do a thing! He’s ruining everything I have built here! I couldn’t even get the gold of the thief. It’s terrible! Send over Eric to help us deal with this catastrophe or we’re going to lose or valuable income source.”

We all just stared at the snail, some mouths hanging open. Garp’s eyes seemed to be leaving his skull the way he stared at the snail. The expression of the snail changed as well as if Nezumi had realized that something was wrong.

“Captain Nezumi, this is Vice-Admiral Garp. I will head over immediately.” Before the rat could reply anything, Garp ended the call. 

Garp rushed away toward his ship and the other marines who belonged to his crew followed. The one holding the snail seemed lost and after looking stupid for a while decided that it was best to go back from where he came.

Helmeppo and Coby next to me rose.

“That means we’ll have to go, too,” Helmeppo summed things up.

“Let’s say goodbye to Apis while we can,” Coby suggested.

I nodded and went with them.

Apis was not very happy that we left but she still smiled at us and told us about her plans to protect the new dragons as good as she could.

When we went back to our ship, Apis waving after us, I saw two figures standing behind old calcified dragon bones. “Hey, Coby, Helmeppo, I think I forgot something. I’ll come right back, okay?”

“Um, yeah, sure. But be quick. Garp looks like we’ll set sail any second now.”

 I walked over to the thief brothers. They did not notice me coming up to them, as involved in their discussion as they were.

“But Borodo! Maybe they can help us!”

“Akisu, it is way too dangerous. Maybe they could beat a devilfruit user but they can’t beat several of them plus an extra army.”

“Okay but the other marines are strong, too. The grandpa sent the fatty flying, he could help us!”

I sighed and they turned towards me, shocked that I made it all the way to their hideout. “We’re heading out now.”

Akisu looked at the ground like his plans had just shattered and fallen.

“If you don’t want to ask us for help, there is another option.” Go the canon path.

“There is this pirate crew called the Strawhat Pirates. I know, they are pirates and pirates are evil but they’re different. The captain Luffy will definitely help you. You’ll just have to get his attention.”

Borodo seemed interested but not sure. “Look, they can beat more than one army and a few devilfruit users. They are known to achieve miracles and no small ones either.”

“How do we get them to help us?” Akisu asked immediately after I finished speaking.

I grinned. This was the fun part. “Why, you steal their ship and put it in the enemy’s stronghold, of course. And don’t give me that look, Borodo. You are thieves. You specialize in getting things out of secured places, you might as well get a ship in.”

Borodo looked conflicted, “Thanks for your idea, but we can’t get people involved if we don’t know they can survive.”

That’s not the idea I got from watching your story. “Well, you have time to think about it. I have to go now. Good luck.”

As I turned and walked towards the others, Akisu jumped me and hugged my legs. “Wait a second. I want to give you something. Um, but not only for you, more like for all of you.”

I was a bit taken by surprise. I didn’t think that I would get anything out of this adventure, much less a present. “Thank you?”

Akisu smiled at me when Borodo caught up with us and took a small pouch out of his uniform. “I was planning on keeping it safe for Akisu for the time he wanted to eat it but it is his to do whatever he wants with.”

Akisu smiled even brighter than he did before as he took the pouch and handed it over to me. It was light and felt like there was a round object within. I tried to shake it but it didn’t make any sounds. “I found it on the dragon island. The one with the ruins. It hung on one of the trees and I think it’s what people call ‘devilfruit’.

Did… did the kid really find one of those?! And give it to me?! “Are you really sure you want to give it to me?”

“Not you. All of you. You three should decide who gets it.”

I stared at the child and then I stared at Borodo. He just smiled and shrugged.

“Thank you very much. We’ll take great care of it.” I really didn’t know what to say. I did not expect that to happen and I was bad with saying thank you in general. This was just too much for one day.

Borodo and Akisu stayed behind and joined Apis in waving goodbye when we left. Coby and Helmeppo were happy to see them one last time and waved back as hard as they could, too. I thought I saw Garp standing nearby, smiling, and watching us but when I turned around, he was walking away to some other place. Probably the kitchen. The old man is just like his grandson in some ways. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did someone order an extra long chapter? No one? Well, here it is anyway


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

It was 3 am and I was lying in bed wide awake, looking at the pouch that Akisu had given me. I haven’t opened it because I was not sure if I really wanted to see a real devilfruit. It had kept me awake for the whole night and with every second I looked at the pouch, I was getting more and more unsure about this. I had not actually planned on informing Coby or Helmeppo about this even though Akisu asked me to. If he wanted us to do this fairly, he should’ve given it to Coby, not me. But I was really getting nowhere, just staring at it.

That settled it then. Better ask the other two than look at the small bag without a resolve. Well, maybe this time he was lucky and I would do what the brat wanted. I stood up, trying not to make a lot of noise and sneaked over to the rest of the crew. The room looked really big during the day when almost no one was inside. At night, it was another story. Almost every hammock was occupied and you had to dodge arms and legs to get to Coby and Helmeppo. I almost ran into a pair of feet when I dodged a hand that came swinging in my direction. Then I reached Coby. Helmeppo was a hammock farther to the left and there were feet hanging down, blocking easy access. I poked Coby in the face. The first time, he swatted my finger away and turned. I poked him again and he grumbled. The third time, he finally opened his eyes.

“Jayna…? Wha? Did I fall asleep on deck aga-” He cut himself off when he realized that he was in his hammock and has not crashed asleep after training. “What are you doing here?” he hissed. At least he was smart enough not to wake up the other marines.

I pointed at Helmeppo and then to the exit. Then I made my way back to where I came from and hoped that Coby got the message. I heard him shift and grumble a bit and then waited outside.

“So, what’s this about?” Helmeppo asked. He did not look very happy and Coby was sporting a very red cheek. Heh, good thing I let Coby handle that.

I showed them the pouch. “A gift from Akisu. We should discuss what to do with it.”

We agreed that it would be best to go back to my ‘room’ and talk there. Well, mainly I agreed to it and the two followed me because I gave them the ‘nobody needs to know about this’ look.

We settled down in a loose circle and I put the pouch in the middle. Maybe I should look for candles and put them around us to create an ominous atmosphere. Like some horror film cliché setting. Or maybe not because candles could easily fall over and then we’d need to explain why we set the ship on fire…

“I am still waiting for an answer. What is this about?” Helmeppo asked. He was scrutinizing the floor and did not seem too pleased with its cleanliness.

“Like I said, we need to figure out what to do with that,” I gestured towards the pouch in our middle. “Akisu said it’s a devilfruit he picked up.”

Coby pulled back his hand from the pouch, no longer curious and more concerned.  “A devilfruit? Are you sure?”

I shrugged. “That’s what he said.”

Helmeppo took the pouch and eyed it suspiciously. “How could that kid have so much luck? I never found one and never had enough money to buy one.”

“You wanted one?”

He looked at me. “Who doesn’t want one? They are rare and they give you crazy powers. But the ones that are sold are expensive. I looked into it but there was no way I could get one with my allowance alone and dad never wanted to buy me one.”

“Should we sell it then?”

Helmeppo sighed. “We could make some money but if we don’t know what it does, it’ll go for the same price as the lowest tier. We might sell a fire fruit for hundred million instead of the billion it could go for.”

“Or it has a really cool ability like turning into rubber,” Coby suggested with a smile.

I blinked. “Fire is already used by Fire Fist Ace and rubber is taken by Luffy. This fruit definitely does not have those abilities.”

Both boys looked at me in confusion.

“You know that every ability is unique, don’t you? As long as those two don’t die, you won’t get any of their powers,” I explained.

Coby and Helmeppo looked surprised. “Oh.”

I knew that devilfruits were not common in the East Blue but I at least expected them to know the basics. Seems like they knew absolutely nothing but ‘the fruits give you sweet powers’.

“So what, we eat it?” Helmeppo suggested.

“I don’t want it,” Coby said firmly.

Helmeppo looked surprised. “Are you sure? This could help you with becoming a good marine.”

Coby shook his head. “No, I don’t want it. I don’t need it.”

Helmeppo wanted to protest Coby’s decision but he seemed to not care about arguments.

“So, you want it?” I asked Helmeppo.

“Sure. You?”

“I… am unsure. I wouldn’t say no to something awesome but what’s the chance? Maybe it’s something like the snot-snot fruit. There’s no way to tell.”

Helmeppo snorted. “Sure. Maybe it allows you to turn into a feather duster. Would keep this place clean.”

It’s a storage room, what did people expect of me? I won’t clean every time someone swirls up clouds of dust by moving crates.

 “So, how do we decide who gets it?”

“Rock, Paper, Scissors?” Coby might not want the devilfruit but he was sure helpful. Though that doesn’t sound like an elegant way to decide something as life-changing as devilfruit ownership but I had no better ideas.

We played. Helmeppo put down scissors and stared at my hand. Coby wiggled his glasses to make sure that he was seeing correctly.

“What did you just play?” Helmeppo sounded so done.

I grinned at him. “Well, obviously I chose Spock.”

Before any of them could ask questions, I said, “I believed you meant we play ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock’ which is just as simple but with two more added options. Because if you know the person you play against, you most likely end in a tie. So, I naturally went for the better option.”

Helmeppo looked like he was about to ram his scissors into my eyes.

“We can do the normal version again if you’d like to, though.” I gave him a smile.

This time Helmeppo chose rock. I got so lucky that I chose paper.

I grinned. “I guess it was meant to be?” I could’ve just gone ahead and eaten the thing without ever involving the other two.

Helmeppo looked a bit sad but didn’t say anything anymore. Coby picked up the pouch and opened it and took out the fruit. “Well, that’s yours then. It sure looks strange. It looks like an apple but at the same time it doesn’t…”

I looked at the fruit in Coby’s hands. Like he said, it was formed like an apple but this one was a bright blue with darker triangles covering it. I felt the need to smash something. Anything. “That’s… not a devilfruit.”

Helmeppo took the fruit and turned it in his hands. “You sure? It looks inedible to me. Must be one.”

“Devilfruits don’t look like this. They are normally covered in swirls and the artificial kind are covered in circles. I don’t know what this is but it ain’t a devilfruit. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go wake up Nick. I need something to vent.”

Coby beamed. “You’re going for early training? I’ll tag along.”

~*~*~

“Wow, I don’t think I have ever seen anything like this,” Nick commented.

Bogard sighed, “Incredible.”

Coby nervously turned to me and Helmeppo and the other boy turned to Coby.

“I don’t think I have ever seen anyone who couldn’t hit a target that close.”

Coby turned around and bowed down, “We will try to be better next time!”

Bogard left, shaking his head and Nick was probably calculating if the costs would be worth the gain. Probably not. I already knew it would turn out like this next time as well.

At least it was calming to try and shoot one big rock. Not that I actually hit the rock, no matter how big and close it was. I saw a grey bird fall out of the sky though. I would like to tell you that I was the one who hit it and that I had aimed for it, but the truth more than likely was that the bird just died of natural causes. It looked pretty old if its long Dumbledore-like beard reflected its age. Come to think of it, why did that bird even have a beard?

“Don’t worry, no one is good at everything. You guys aren’t good at shooting rocks but maybe you’re better at shooting other stuff like seakings. Everyone can shoot a seaking. They’re big monsters and easy to hit.”

I think the seaking that has been following us around wouldn’t like to hear that. Or maybe he did, considering how he liked to sacrifice others of his kind.

Bogard had left, probably to let Garp know how much we sucked. Not that that would be any news for him.

Nick sent us to get some breakfast right after we put the rifles back. When we sat down next to Garp, he looked unusually serious as he read a letter. He was back to normal when he noticed us.

This time, Garp had no time to steal our breakfast or tell us that we needed to eat more meat if we wanted to be strong marines someday because one of his men approached him and Garp left quickly.

After breakfast, we waited for Nick or Bogard to show up and tell us what was planned for today but they seemed to be busy with something. That’s when the cooks claimed us and put us on dish washing duty. If there was one thing the cooks did better than their job, it was finding creative ways to hinder Garp at stealing the food supplies. Not everything was kept near the kitchen but the stuff they did store here was on lock-down. While we three were washing dishes, the cooks ran all sorts of crazy “what if” experiments on their locks to ensure absolute safety.

We finally left the kitchen and I ran into some guy who blocked the way. I was about to apologize but when he turned around and revealed mouse ears on his hat and a pair of whiskers, I decided not to. Nezumi didn’t deserve people being nice to him.

“Are you blind? Running into me like that?” he hissed at me but turned back before I could answer. “So, Vice-admiral Garp, you see, it was just a misunderstanding. I am so happy that you offered to help us out with our situation. I’ll head back to the base and come back later to assist you.”

And then the rat stalked off and bordered his own ship that anchored next to ours. While doing so, he revealed Garp with Bogard and Nick. Garp looked like he was suffering from a major headache.

“Do you believe his story?” Nick asked Garp, the way he said it made clear that he himself did not believe one word.

Garp thought about his answer for a while. “We’ll see. If the village is damaged we’ll take care of the citizens first before we do anything else.”

 

Said citizens were not very happy to see us. Parents pulled their children into houses and closed the doors.

Garp didn’t look very happy when we met with another marine group in town. Surprisingly, the one leading it was not Nezumi or one of his men. It was Fullbody who argued with Genzo, Johnny, and Yosaku. Behind them were a lot of tied up guys who sported very weird skin colors, ranging from blue to purple to bright yellow. It took me a while to realize that that were the fishman.

As we approached, the three non-marines stiffened and Fullbody turned around. His expression of annoyance turned into a beaming smile once he saw Garp. He greeted Garp with a salute, “Vice-admiral! We were about to pick up the pirates.”

Pink hair whipped in the wind and into his face. It looked ridiculous.

“You are not going to pick up anything,” Johnny snarled and Yosaku added, “unless we can be sure that these guys go directly to prison.”

Fullbody’s smile turned into a snarl. He probably heard the same words a lot today. Before he could muster a reply, he was shoved out of the way by the elderly policeman. Genzo scrutinized Garp sharply. “You’re the marine hero Garp?” Genzo made no efforts to hide his suspicion.

Garp smiled at Genzo. “Yes, I am Monkey D. Garp,” he stated firmly.

I heard Coby and Helmeppo slamming their hands on their mouths hard to muffle a shout. Their eyes were wide with realization. Took them quite a while. Genzo’s eyes reflected the same sudden understanding of who exactly was standing in front of them. Johnny and Yosaku grinned and the former simply said, “Well, then we’ll leave the fish in your care. We want our money in return, though, This ain’t a charity act.”

 That was the cue for my luck to give me the boring assignment. Instead of getting the same job as Coby and Helmeppo which was basically to try and help the villagers, Nick gave me and a few other marines the task to take the bounty hunters and Fullbody, who insisted on tagging along to make sure that the duo of incompetent swordsmen don’t mess with us, go to the ship and have them sail over to the bounty office. We were also the lucky ones who had to get the pirates out of town. It was fun to walk with glares piercing your back. It felt just like school.

When we got to Fullbody’s ship, the guys prepared to set sail. Not with the big ship, of course. They let down a small boat that was big enough for maybe five people if no one had any issues with body contact. 

The pink-haired guy looked at me and the other members of Garp’s crew and simply told us to ‘put the prisoners on his ship while he was gone’. The other marines didn’t let on what they were thinking. After a short discussion about what to do where no one spent any thought on my opinion, it was decided that they would take the pirates into the ship one by one and I was supposed to stay outside and watch them. As if I was enough if the fishmen decided to try their luck and uproot the tree they were chained around. I’d be dead before I could even draw my sword. Or maybe I’d draw it and then have trouble deciding who I should attack first because there were a lot of fishmen. It was not just Arlong and his few little named friends, there were enough dangerous fish to film a new Sharknado movie.

It also didn’t help that I was facing Arlong the whole time. His nose was broken and stood in a very awkward angle to the rest of his face. He had countless little wounds and the bigger ones were still bleeding whenever he shifted and reopened them. The way one arm’s position just seemed off, I guessed it was broken. There was nothing physically scary about this thoroughly pounded fish. He would’ve been way more intimidating if he were standing upright and did not look like someone had tried to cut him up for dinner. His skin looked dried out in a bad way. The only part that reminded me of what a vicious villain he had been by East Blue standards were his intense eyes that were filled with nothing else than hatred and bloodlust.

I was glad that he didn’t do much else but stare. I could handle that, no problem. The other fishmen behaved and gave me looks occasionally but Arlong was really very passionate about staring at me. With time passing there were also less stares due to fishmen being taken to the ship.

I counted only five big fish left when Arlong decided to talk with me. By that I mean he started to insult me. “What are you staring at, puny human? Do you feel superior because I cannot rip your ugly head off right now?”

I blinked. He continued shouting at me, “You’re nothing compared to us! You’re useless, can’t breathe underwater. Your race is inferior and I will show you all. You, the marines, the Strawhat pirates, I will _kill_ you all. I will do it _slowly_. Maybe break every bone before I _throw you in the water_ and watch you drown. Or I can chop off your limbs first and let you bleed out while you call for help! If you start crawling for your measly life I will make sure that _you won’t get away_!!”

With every sentence, Arlong grew louder and more furious. His volume was enough to make his friends flinch away. As for me, well at first, I was startled. His outburst was just so sudden and I didn’t do anything special to provoke it. I was just standing there, staring back at him like I did for the whole time already. Suddenly, he wanted to rip my head off. After the first shock passed, it was clear that he couldn’t do anything though.

“Uh, okay? I don’t know what to say to the info but you’re great at delivering confident talks. Maybe go down in the volume? But if that’s your thing, by all means, continue doing it.”

“Are you RIDICULING ME?! HOW DARE YOU PUNY HUMAN-” That’s when I stopped listening.

How did the marines not hear Arlong? Or are they ignoring the trouble, drinking coffee in the kitchen?

 I yawned and turned my back to Arlong. Whatever I did to provoke his rage storm, maybe it’ll stop it.

Maybe seven meters away, Hachi froze and stared at me. His right foot froze in midair, right above a branch that fell from a nearby tree. I did a double take of the situation while Hachi put his foot down and the branch broke under his weight with a loud crack.

“Attack the human! Hachi! You TRAITOR!!” Arlong’s voice was filled with enough hate to make it sound like he was talking about humans again. we both ignored him. Hachi faced me warily, his eyes following my movements. He was ready to sprint and I was ready to draw my sword in case I needed to.

“Are you going to do what your boss tells you to?” I asked him.

Hachi shot Arlong a quick glance. “Depends.”

I took a deep breath. “If I turn around and pretend this had never happened…?”

Hachi finished my thought slowly. “There were no marines anywhere, definitely no one. Clear and empty beach. Straight way to the ocean.”

Arlong still shouted at Hachi.

“You better hurry, there are others on the ship.” I turned around and prayed that the only decent member of Arlong Park would stay decent. I counted to five and was not attacked, so I turned back and Hachi was gone. Arlong growled. I took a few steps backwards just in case I was in snapping range.

How did Luffy manage to face Arlong while the fishman was not beaten up and chained to a tree? I was very glad that I had not been in Cocoyashi before Arlong had been prepared for dinner.

It took a very long while for the fishmen to all be safely put on board but afterwards, Fullbody still wasn’t back and before the marines could assign me any other job to do like look after the fishmen on board, I told them I was off to report to Garp and did not wait for their answer.

I did not head for Garp, though. I took a walk along the beach for fun and to relax. It’s not like anyone really needed me right now. Garp would also understand; he himself runs away from work a lot. Ironically, I ran into the person I least wanted to see at the beach. It had to be Nezumi.

He was snickering to himself while his men handed him a suitcase. “How much did you retrieve?”

“About fifty million, sir,” the unknown marine answered.

“Only fifty? You let the pirates escape with half of the gold?” His mood had shifted rapidly. Someone should try to control their emotions better. It was impressive though that the rat got his greedy little fingers on Nami’s gold, even if it was only part of the whole treasure. Fifty million sounded like a sweet deal. I wish I could have that much money someday. I wish I would’ve gotten that sickle guy’s bounty but nooooo, marines don’t get the bounty for the people they apprehend. It’s our job to catch them, we do it for the ‘greater good’.

“S-sir, we had trouble with that one kid. We didn’t think one of the pirates would wait for us hidden between the tangerine trees.” The marine’s tone had a very gentle touch of ‘you know that, you were there’.

“Excuses, nothing more. At least you made it here without anyone noticing. You’re dismissed.” 

The captain kept snickering to himself, bent over the now open suitcase. I walked over. “Wow, that’s a lot of money,” I said.

The suitcase was promptly shut and the captain turned around. “You! The one who ran into me! What are you doing here?!”

His eyes were so small, almost pressed shut when he eyed me.

“Taking a walk?” I suggested.

“You’re not supposed to slack off! State your name and ID number, I will report you to your superior.” It was more a hiss than an order.

 Nezumi did not look pleased when I shrugged. “I don’t have an ID number yet. I’m new to this whole marine business.” And I don’t intend to stay long so I won’t need a number.

“No ID? Impossible! Empty your pockets. If you won’t give me your ID the easy way, I will get it the hard way.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course, he had to take the hard way to spite me. The only thing I carried on me was the fake devilfruit anyway. So I took out the pouch. Before the ratty captain could hiss at me to open it, I already took out the fruit and showed it to him.

His face lost all the color. He stammered, “I-is that a de-devilfruit?”

No, you idiot that’s not one of those. I thought you had to have a base level of knowledge to be a captain but apparently you never left the backwaters you call East Blue. Someone as power-hungry and corrupt like you should know better because you’re just the kind to want that kind of power aren’t you--- Ooooh I got an idea.

I smiled my nice-girl-smile at Nezumi. “You recognize it? I got it as a gift but I am not sure if I am ready for such great power.”

Nezumi nodded along. “Yes, of course I recognize a devilfruit when I see one. You did well not to eat it. with great power comes great responsibility, after all. It suits someone of higher rank better.”

“Someone like you?” I asked.

Nezumi grinned back, “I am a captain. I am one of the stronger members of the Marine.”

You are interested alright. “I originally planned to sell it. I heard they go for very high prices, starting at hundred million. This one here, I heard it is special. It can give one the power to control gold. It wouldn’t get me far though since I, as a poor low-level marine, don’t make enough money to get my hands on much gold.

“But someone like you, you can use it better than I can.”

Nezumi tried to grab the fruit but I took a step to the left and his hand whisked through air.

“Captain, I feel like I have to make it up to you that I bumped into you and all. I did not even apologize. How about I give you the fruit for a special offer?”

He watched me closely. “How much?”

I grinned. “How about those nice fifty million you got there?”

Nezumi stood still for a moment, contemplating. Then, he silently handed me the suitcase and I gave him the fruit in exchange.

The rat grinned victoriously. “It’s nice to have such a generous business partner.”

You’re an idiot. “Same to you.”

I headed straight back to Garp’s ship and hid the suitcase under my mattress.

~*~*~

 

I continued my walk around the island, careful to stay away from white uniforms. I wouldn’t want to run into Nezumi again. I didn’t know how but I ended up at Nami’s home.

The trees were beautiful. The green leaves and the orange fruits made a great contrast and their colors were both brimming.

“There’s no more gold here, marine. And you better not think about stealing my tangerines,” someone said behind me. I could feel a slight tingle at my neck; the feeling you get when someone is holding a weapon close to you. Nojiko was not messing around.

“I’m just looking, don’t worry. I am no thief. Not like your sister,” a staff hit me in the head, telling me to watch my words, “and definitely not like a certain ratty marine captain.” The staff retreated and I turned around to face Nami’s older sister. Today was a day filled with familiar faces looking at me with suspicion.

Nojiko huffed, “What is the marine doing so far from Cocoyashi?”

“It’s not that far away, really. Nothing special, just taking a walk. Avoiding work.”

“That’s the thing you people do the best,” Nojiko jeered, “we had pirates terrorizing our island for years now and none of you ever lifted a finger.”

“Not my fault. I just got here,” I told her.

Nojiko raised an eyebrow. Was it really news to her that Garp got to Cocoyashi? No one had informed her yet?

“I’m part of Vice-admiral Garp’s crew. We got here after Nezumi sent an unfortunate call for help.”

Garp’s name rang a bell if Nojiko’s wide eyes were anything to go by. At least she knew the old stories about the great hero who captured Roger.

“And, you know, if you feel like complaining about marine patrols in the vicinity or maybe a terrible customer service, now is your best chance,” I offered with a grin.

Nojiko finally lowered her staff completely. She walked over to her house. “You better come inside and sit down. You got a long list to write down. We had a lot of problems with you guys lately.”

I followed her, grinning. No such fun as dragging Nezumi through the mud.

Nojiko had a lot to share. A terrible past, tangerine tea, and lots and lots of paper. It took us eleven pages to get all of the problems Cocoyashi had jotted down.

“…and we don’t even get any money back! Nami’s treasure is gone and Arlong’s bounty goes to Johnny and Yosaku. Ah, don’t write that down, it’s not meant as a complaint in that way. Nami took what belonged to her, all of us villagers decided against accepting her money and Johnny and Yosaku need the bounty for their big plans.”

I looked up from the paper. “Big plans? Those two?” I could only imagine them having a party at some bar. What other big plans could these two have?

Nojiko chuckled. “Everyone can have big dreams. Those two are trying to accomplish theirs. Just like Nami’s friends. They’re the ones that motivated Johnny and Yosaku, too. Especially that talk-active one did a great job.”

Playing mysterious, huh? I didn’t remember anything about Johnny and Yosaku after Arlong’s defeat so it couldn’t be too important. Especially if Usopp was involved in the motivational process. If he got them to follow their dreams with one of his songs about his awesomeness they might only try to get as good at lying as the long nose.

“Are we done, then?” I asked.

Nojiko hummed for a while as she leaned back in her chair, feet on the table.

“Hey, what does Garp the Hero look like?”

Why are you interested? “Old big man, beard, likes to wear a dog hat.”

Nojiko stared at the ceiling intensively. “I think I saw him standing at my mother’s grave. She was a marine, too. A good one, not like that rat.”

She kept staring upwards and I wasn’t sure if she wanted an answer, a comment, sympathy, whatever, so I opted for silence.

I was relieved when Nojiko finally said she was done with the list. I stood up and left. On my way out, I saw the fruit I sold to Nezumi lying on the window sill. Nojiko stole that from him? First he falls for a fake devilfruit and then he lets it get stolen, too. Today’s not his day.

~*~*~

I found Garp in the middle of a conversation with Fullbody. Pink hair was gesticulating wildly while Garp mostly listened and laughed whenever something funny was said.

“…it’s crazy, isn’t it? But I guess that’s over for me now. At least for a while. It still feels surreal that starting next week, I won’t be a captain anymore and will have to work my way back up again.”

Garp smiled light-heartedly. “If you do it right, it’s easy to get your rank back. You just have to try and work hard.” That’s your solution for every problem, isn’t it, old man?

Fullbody’s smile changed to something more cunning. “Ah, that’s true. Anyway, would you like to join me at lunch tomorrow? There are some fancy restaurants around and while I still am captain, I would like to go in style.”

Oh, you sneaky little dude. Are you trying to persuade Garp to help you? He’s too dense for that. Your plan is like trying to get Luffy to keep a secret. It doesn’t work.

“Oh? That sounds like a great idea!” Garp laughed and Fullbody looked relieved. “My crew will be happy to hear that! It’s been a while since we’ve been to a restaurant. I hope to see your men there as well.”

Fullbody’s smile changed to a look of horror, almost as if he had seen Garp in nothing but underwear just now.

“Can we go to a really fancy place? I always wanted to go check out the Baratie,” I added, surprising Fullbody who only just now noticed me.

Garp laughed at my suggestion while Fullbody seemed to die thousand deaths. “Great idea!” Garp clapped me on the back. I could feel that he held back most of his strength but it was still enough to knock the air out of my lungs.

Fullbody only nodded and walked away.

After he vanished, I turned to Garp. The old man gave me a stern look. “Where have you been? Henry said you wanted to report the prisoner situation. That was hours ago.”

I gulped and hoped I wouldn’t get a Fist of Love afterwards. Those hurt and I was almost completely sure that I lost braincells everytime he used that particular educational method. “I was talking to one of the people living here. She had some things she wanted to complain about and I promised to give you the list.”

I handed over the very long list before Garp could ask any questions. He skimmed the pages and at first, he wore a serious expression that turned darker and darker until he looked like he was about to murder someone.

“We’re spending tonight at the nearest base. I need to talk to Nezumi,” Garp growled.

As Garp walked away, everyone jumped out of his way.

~*~*~

 The base was stuffed with people. The small building was clearly not meant for three crews. Nezumi’s men who were used to having the base for themselves now had to share with Fullbody’s and Garp’s. Nonetheless, everyone felt like partying in a moderate fashion. There were barrels of beer changing hands and potato chips were everywhere.

“No alcohol for those who’re underage,” Nick reminded Coby and Helmeppo who were both clutching their glasses with tangerine juice, smiling awkwardly. The tangerine juice was better, anyway. It was fresh and one could taste the warmth and sun. The only other alternative was pepper mint tea and the thought alone was disgusting. The one thing I could not eat or drink, no matter how hard I tried.

The marines next to us played a round of poker and as far as I could tell, only one of them cheated. Maybe that was because the rest really played fair or the one was so bad at cheating that it was too obvious.

Some sang a sailor’s song about mermaids competing against dugongs in a martial arts tournament. Strange stuff, really.

The room quieted down when one of Fullbody’s men hit a big gong. He stood on one of the tables so that everyone could see him. “Ladies and Gentlemen! Tonight is a very special night. Not only did Captain Nezumi finally get what he had coming but two thirds of us also got invited to the Baratie, _the_ most well-known restaurant in the Blue Seas! And the captain’s gonna pay for us all. So we’re going to play a little party game special to our little crew.”

His friends under Fullbody’s men started to cheer. The guy smiled as one of his crewmates handed him a platter with little drinking glasses. Another one heaved a bucket on the table.

“We call it ‘mystery food raffle’. You get over here and pick a number and get the glass with the same number. We’re packing all kinds of strange vegetables, fruits, nuts, meat. Whatever you can think of, it is in here and every glass is unique. None are like the other. No one here has tasted them before so we don’t know what you get.”

Some people shouted names of people they wanted to nominate and the courageous ones shouted ‘me!’

“The one who is allowed to go first is the one who made the whole party possible. And it just so occurs that the person who is responsible for tomorrow’s lunch is also the one who got Nezumi into a tight situation.”

Really? Like, really? I do something good and now life punishes me with some strange game where I am used for the entertainment of others?

“It’s the miss in the right corner! Come here and pick your number!”

All eyes turned on me. I could at least try to get out of the situation. “Oh, I did nothing special…”

My protests got ignored and the poker table got up to drag me to the front, creating a path through the stuffed room. Then I stood in front of the guy with the platter. His friend gave me the bucket filled with notes. I closed my eyes while I grabbed a piece of paper near the bottom of the bucket.

“Number 6!” the marine called out and the one standing on the table crouched down.

“Number 6, everyone! That looks very squishy and pale yellow.”

Didn’t sound very appetizing. As I took the glass, I peered into it. It looked like a piece of some fruit that was overripe. It had a glossy look to it.

“Do I really have to eat this? Can’t I try again?” I asked. Helmeppo might say I whimpered but he likes to exaggerate.

“No can do, you chose it, you get it.”

I gulped. I closed my eyes and decided to quickly get it over with.

As soon as the piece of whatever touched my tongue, I felt like throwing up. I got something that tasted like I hate the most: peppermint. The taste was everywhere and it felt like I was about to overload. I tried to breathe in through my nose but the sharp feeling you get when breathing in peppermint made it impossible. I felt a tear running down my cheek.

The second impression I got was the texture. Oh Goda, the texture was awful. I never chewed on an old car tire but that’s what it was like. A car tire with some muddy extra dirt pieces on it.

Someone handed me a glass of tangerine juice and I drank all of it at once to swallow down the piece of fruit and get it over with. While the peppermint wasn’t as strong and I could finally breathe again, the aftertaste was disgusting too. No longer peppermint but more on the tire side of the experience.

“Not that good, huh?” The guy with the platter asked.

“Awful,” I answered. No other word could describe it better.

I went back to my place and the next person stepped forward to get their fair share of disgusting experiences.

Coby looked worried as I sat down next to him. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“Just had terrible luck. I can’t deal with peppermint.” No need for too many details.

Helmeppo looked at me like he wasn’t content with only that but decided against asking.

“You had trouble breathing right now. I’ll take you to Phin just in case it is some allergic reaction,” Nick said.

I insisted on staying because it probably was nothing but Nick didn’t stop worrying and so did Coby and Helmeppo, so I let myself get dragged to the infirmary to see Dr Endou again. He didn’t find anything wrong and told me I could go back and have some fun. I really had enough fun for today.

I went straight to the woman’s bedroom that I had to share with four others for the first time since joining the marines.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter did not want to be written. It needed three attempts but I still made it on time, yay! More importantly: Because I have a lot to do in real life right now, don't expect weekly updates until October. I will try to update at least once in September, but no promises


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I’m back with a new chapter! I know this chapter is pretty late but I did not anticipate real life to through so much at me this month. For now, the one-week schedule will be paused until I get a grip of my life. I will still post chapters once in a while though, don’t worry. This fic is not in danger.

**Chapter 9**

~*Z*~

Zeff was a proud man. He was proud that he had accomplished his dream and was now living it every day. He was proud of how his ship looked, keeping it in the best shape possible. He was proud about his crew of cooks even if they were a bit rowdy sometimes and he was proud that he managed to keep his rules enforced day by day, no matter how annoying any of his customers were. Sure, he missed the little eggplant but he wouldn’t start weeping over it or anything like that. He was a proud man and couldn’t show any sort of weakness or he wouldn’t forgive himself, you see.

Carne made his way to the kitchen and dropped off the orders he had taken from the guests. They were short on waiters again but there was nothing they could do about it if no one was up to the job.

Today was a good day for Zeff. He almost did not take the reservation and would’ve told Fullbody to shove it up his special place but he was glad he considered otherwise. He couldn’t let entire crews go unfed just because of a personal grudge he held.

Patty was also very happy about this decision because the money was flowing today as well. Probably because Fullbody was paying for everything and there were some people here that used the chance for a subtle payback. Zeff knew that that prick was the type to make people dislike him.

Zeff took a look at the newest orders.

_All the meat!!!_

He snorted. There was only one family that would order that. Considering that the youngest Monkey left only a few days ago and took one of his best cooks – he won’t admit it out loud, of course – there was only one option left. Zeff just knew who must’ve placed that order.

A black line separated it from the next order,

_Something with seaking_

And there goes the idiotic mummy man.

_Just a glass of water_

Zeff huffed, the fake James Bond still didn’t appreciate good food. Someday he’ll learn.

The next items on the list were completely normal, sometimes adding an aperitif or dessert. He began to frown when suddenly the list became a jumbled mess of too many orders.

“Carne! Get back here now!”

When the cook appeared, Zeff bonked him with his large hat.

“What’s this about? How are we supposed to keep track of who ordered what if you don’t make clear when one order ends? Just because you don’t like waiting doesn’t mean you can do a shitty job.”

Carne was still rubbing his head where he was growing a little bump. “But Chef, I am doing my job right! That _is_ only one person’s order.”

 Zeff was about to tell the cook to stop lying to save himself from chastising when their newest addition to the team popped up. Too bad that their only competent waiter would leave today. He could’ve stayed longer.

Gin handed Zeff another piece of paper with hastily scribbled orders. “That’s part two and part three should get here sooner or later.”

Zeff took a look at the long list of items and stomped toward the table it was jotted down at. He was not going to take someone breaking his one of his important rules: Don’t waste food. It couldn’t be anything but an attempt to get back on Fullbody on the cost of countless ingredients. There should be no one left in the East Blue that could eat that much.

When he got to the right table – finding it didn’t take long, he knew what to look for – he encountered Patty still taking orders. Something about two scoops of sesame ice cream. And coconut pudding. It was not that clear because the woman who ordered all the food talked a tad too fast and managed to stumble over every second syllable. Something told him that she always spoke that way. She looked like a weaker version of a normal East Blue citizen and the old sword on her belt didn’t help make her seem intimidating or capable in the least. The Marine must be in big trouble if they take people like her. Zeff was not sure if he could hit her with his hat without accidentally putting a dent in her skull. Maybe this required a verbal beatdown.

 

~*G*~

Gin was more than amazed. He had been part of the workforce on the Baratie since the Strawhats had left, he had seen Zeff kick out customers with more than a few scratches. He had not yet seen him try the diplomatic approach. Not that he didn’t understand his chef’s decision. The girl was not scrawny or anything but she looked like anything more extreme than a bonk on the head could injure her. He didn’t know where he got that impression from but it was one of his instincts that told him that.

“Will you ever finish that order?” Zeff snarled.

Gin set a dish with a grilled steak in front of the old man who seemed to be the highest-ranked of the ones sitting at that particular table.

The girl blinked at Zeff before giving him a very short reply, “Huh?” If Gin had to guess that ‘huh’ was not really directed at what the chef had just asked her but was more a reaction to being interrupted. Since she was still placing orders and all.

“You’re wasting food. In my restaurant. You better make up your mind what of that you really want and can eat before I throw you out of my restaurant.”

“…but I can eat all of that.”

Gin almost choked on his laughter. Better not laugh at customers, he had learned that lesson a while ago. You can only do that when they were thrown out already.

A blond kid tried to hide under the table but a pink-hair one pulled him up again, hissing something about friendship and the old marine man was watching with an amused smile.

Zeff stared at the girl for a while longer and then turned to the old marine man who… had already finished his steak?

“Is that girl one of your shitty grandkids, Garp?” Zeff asked and Gin could hear the amusement in his voice. “After that Luffy kid showed up and ate half of my storage, I wouldn’t put it past you to have another hungry brat.”

This was Gin’s cue to leave. As soon as Zeff started talking about Luffy and his crew, the conversation would drag on and on and would ultimately lead to Zeff reminiscing about his past with Sanji. He also did not want to get involved with the marines if Zeff asked him to give his opinion on the unique pirate crew. He couldn’t risk marines finding out about his past when he had already planned out his future. Of course, the Fullbody idiot already knew but there was a big chance he would not openly admit his defeat and the way he fled from the restaurant after he was kicked out by a cook and then failed miserably against Don Krieg.

Gin stopped at the kitchen and shouted with no particular listener in mind, “I’m going on break for the next few minutes!” He then left the restaurant and sat down in the back of it. this place held a certain meaning for him. Retreat, relief, new hope. Here, he could breathe freely and feel like his past didn’t matter anymore since he has freed himself of the baggage that was Don Krieg.

Quietly, a door closed behind him and Gin tensed, knowing full well that he had closed it before, so it couldn’t have been pushed shut by the wind.

 “Hey,” someone said behind Gin. He slowly turned around to face the intruder.

Gin glanced at the female marine who had gotten in trouble with Zeff warily, ready to jump into action if needed. He hoped that he didn’t need to use any violence but he was prepared to in the worst case scenario.

“What?” he hissed.

“Aren’t you Don Krieg’s right-hand man?”, she asked with a wavering voice.

Gin’s eyes widened a bit. Damn, someone has recognized him.

The girl seemed to sense his thoughts as she put up her arms quickly and waved them in front of her while taking a step back. “I won’t say anything to the people inside, don’t worry. If Fullbody didn’t say anything, I surely don’t want to. The owner is scary, you know.”

Gin relaxed a bit but still kept his eyes trained on her movements. “So, what do you want?”

The female marine shrugged and then said, “Just wondering if you want to meet the Strawhats again. They were the ones that beat your captain, after all.”

Gin took his time before he answered, “You think I want to take revenge on them?”

“Not really, but maybe you want a chance to catch up with them and join their crew?”, she proposed, “Since you’re free from your old captain now. There’s no reason you can’t.”

Gin blinked and barked out a short laugh, “A marine who wants me to take up pirating again? And people say all the strange things happen on the Grandline.”

Gin had now completely dropped his guard and grinned at the young woman. He found this situation to be very funny and somewhere deep within, he was glad that it did not turn out the way he had assumed. Or at least it had not yet turned out the way he had thought. He knew enough about the world not to be too enthusiastic about people and their hidden motives.

 “So, if you want me to join the Strawhat pirates, how would I catch up to them? They must be on the Grandline already,” Gin stated, humored.

“Luffy took a detour to save Nami’s village, Cocoyashi. They are headed to Loguetown now and will take a while to reach Reverse Mountain,” she told Gin and then after a short pause added, “Coincidentally, we’re headed to Loguetown as well, so if you want to catch a ride… Together we’d have a better chance of finding Luffy.”

Gin wasn’t sure how the girl could state that with such an absolute certainty. He might not have heard about Strawhats adventures since he had started working at the Baratie - he was not as good with rumors as Yosaku and Johnny and news traveled slowly in the Blues, especially the East Blue – but he did not trust the marine fully yet either.

“And you know that how?”

She shrugged. “Been there, seen it.”

Gin huffed. Sure, he thought, that might be true. But even if everything was true, he already had something else to do. It was his last day at the Baratie and he had to get to Loguetown someway before the night came to make it to their meeting.

“This isn’t about me, is it? You’re after something else, aren’t you?”, he could see a flash of irritation in her eyes but she did not answer. So he continued, “But I have to disappoint you. I already have something else in mind. But I will take you up on the offer on the free ride to Loguetown.”

He grinned at her and the angles of her mouth dropped. As Gin walked past her, he reminded her, “Better explain your new passenger to your superior, huh? See you later.”

It was time to start his last shift at the restaurant and make the most money in tip he ever had. Gin found himself whistling a tune he had thought forgotten in all the years under Krieg. But maybe music doesn’t die, just like Luffy’s will to get what he wants, he thought to himself.

 

~*H*~

Helmeppo yawned as he sat in the crow’s nest, his feet resting on the wood, completely relaxed. Coby was training below him, running his daily laps around the ship. People cleared his way when they saw him come at them fiercely. Helmeppo decided that he could not do much after such a big and delicious lunch.

He also decided if Jayna could eat herself in a food coma and no one would wake her, he could take the day off as well. He had done a lot of training in the last weeks already, more than he had ever moved his muscles before.

The time when he was the son of Morgan and could do whatever he wanted seemed so far away even if it had been not that long ago. At least that’s what the calendar next to his bed said.

A news coo landed next to him and crowed at the blond boy. Lazily, Helmeppo searched for the beri in his pocket and found just what he needed. As he threw it into the pouch on the news coo’s leg, the bird bonked him with its hard beak on the head.

“Ouch! What’s wrong with you, you damn-“, hissed Helmeppo while he held the spot that was already swelling. The bird really didn’t hold back.

He saw how a wing pointed at a piece of paper bound to the other leg and Helmeppo took it. “What do you mean, it costs more now?! What are you, greedy capitalists?”

The bird shot him a dangerous look that could only be interpreted as ‘take it or leave it’ and Helmeppo decided against being the idiot that argued with a bird, so he grumbled and looked for the rest of the money in his uniform pockets.

When the bird took off, Helmeppo opened the paper but put it aside as he noticed the papers falling down on the ground. He bowed down to take it but the wind carried it off, down to the rest of the ship, right in front of Coby’s feet.

Helmeppo leaned over and shouted down, “Hey, Coby! Mind picking that up!”

Coby came to a halt and look up in confusion, then followed Helmeppo’s outstretched hand until he noticed the paper. Helmeppo saw Coby leaning down, picking it up and, suddenly, Coby startled.

Helmeppo frowned and leaned over the crow’s nest as far as he could to see what was going on down there just as Coby jumped into the air, fists pumped upwards and shouted, “HE REALLY DID IT!”

Helmeppo startled and lost his grip on the nest, falling down and barely keeping himself clawed to the wooden basket he had been relaxing in a few minutes prior.

 

~*T*~

Today was going to be a good day. Tashigi wanted to patrol her part of Loguetown, go get her sword from maintenance at the shop and continue training. As a good marine, she wanted to be an example for everyone. A good citizen, a good soldier, just as good as any male member of the marine force would be. It may be her day off but that did not mean that she could just ignore her daily schedule and not help other people.

Today she looked quite good. Her makeup got done in a few minutes and she did not have to restart because she accidentally drew a wrong line. Looking good while you cannot see anything during your daily morning routine was not easy. Now where were her glasses… ah, there!

Suddenly the door flew open. “Petty officer!”

Tashigi flinched and yelped as she turned around immediately. “Y-Yes!”

It was one of her colleagues who stood in front of her, breathing heavily. We just received a call! Vice-admiral Garp will be arriving today! Probably in the next half an hour!”

“ _What_?!”, Tashigi shrieked, “Did you inform Captain Smoker already?!”

The man scratched the back of his head and avoided any eye contact with her as he dilly dallied around an answer, “Ah… you see… there is a problem. We’ve tried to… but we couldn’t… Captain Smoker is currently after some pirate… Monkey D. Luffy, I think… and we can’t reach him. He… seems to have left his den-den mushi back in his office and… none of the marines with him have one either… we thought we’d better inform you, so you can decide what to do…”

Tashigi was about to bang her head against the next solid surface because she could not believe how her day had turned around. It was not exactly a bad day, no, of course not. It was always an honor to meet higher ups and it was an opportunity to shine. But! She did not want to have this experience with the thrill of finding Smoker at the right time. She knew her boss and she knew that it was almost impossible to find him if he bolted off to his job.

“We need to prepare, no matter if Captain Smoker is present or not. Clean the base as good as you can and then prepare to greet Vice-admiral Garp properly.”, she ordered with a firm voice and the soldier saluted and took off.

Now, where was she. Right, her glasses. She needed to find them again. Tashigi remembered that she had picked them up already yet they were not in her hands. She knelt down and… oh god, was that a glass fragment?!

 

~*S*~

Even though he was the boss of the marine base in Loguetown, Smoker sure didn’t feel like he was the boss of anything. Yes, he had the power to make decisions and everyone listened to his orders. Yes, he was the one in charge and every pirate knew he was going to be their end. Yes, people left him alone most of the time. The thing that bugged him though where the soldiers with their reports, urging him to take certain actions, never letting him time to do his own thing. Well, in the end they did listen to his orders but before they would start giving him advice on actions he needed to take.

His soldiers while he liked them were also a pile of headless chickens, losing their calm way too early. This was not what he had expected of his life in the East Blue when he first got stationed here but he was not going to whine. He did his job, he caught every pirate who passed through his town and wanted to get to the Grandline. He was also going to catch Monkey D. Luffy no matter what. If he was heading to Smoker’s town, it would be the last town he would terrorize, period. One particular soldier asked him to wait for the wanted poster to arrive but really, Smoker knew how to spot pirates, he didn’t need any poster to tell him which person was a pirate and who was an upstanding citizen. He was not blind and he did this job long enough.

He had taken out some of the trash that arrived at his harbor and began terrorizing people not shortly after without getting the picture, after all. One should never underestimate Smoker, he thought. Pirates never learned that lesson, though, it seemed.

“Congratulations, Captain Smoker! You’ve caught Monkey D. Luffy!”, one of his men cheered.

Smoker growled. “That was not Strawhat. That guy was too weak to be worth 30 million beri.” Before anyone could say anything, he went on, patrolling his town, keeping the scum away from the citizens.

Some men were buzzing around him, giving him information for what to be on the lookout for. Rumors travel fast and the fact that Strawhat had taken out Arlong before he even had an official bounty was terrifying a lot of marines in these waters. Smoker didn’t think it was that uncommon for a strong pirate to debut that way. Maybe in the East Blue, yes, but not elsewhere. And pirates taking out pirates wasn’t unheard of either.

“Woooh! What a view!”

Smoker halted and blinked in confusion. Before him stood a teenager with a straw hat who was looking at the port and his eyes shone like stars, admiration for everything and anything apparent.

The black-haired boy turned to him with an ‘ah!’ as he finally noticed him. Smoker wasn’t used to being treated in entirely different ways. He was not blind, he knew that the people of Loguetown were scared of him and rather cleared the way for him than risk getting into a conflict over something as trivial as bumping in to him. Pirates would show disrespect in various forms and his subordinates were always watching their words when they talked to him. This kid did neither. He was just standing there, grinning at the Captain as if he was just another human being and they were on the same level. No fear, just a normal, healthy dose of respect you show towards anyone else, too.

“Hey, can you help me?”, the teenager asked with an open smile.

Smoker blinked again. “What do you need?”

“Directions,” The boy’s eyes lightened up, “I want to see the place where the pirate king died! I want to see what he saw in his last moments.”

The marine captain was taken aback by the kid. A tourist? No, it couldn’t be. No tourists came for that part of Loguetown’s history. Even if they wanted to visit, no one would dare ask for it that directly because everyone feared to be marked as a pirate-sympathizer and get on the marine’s bad side. And here, this boy asked for it so directly without any fear or anxiety, Smoker didn’t know how to react at first.

“Follow the smoke, it will show you the way to the platform,” he pointed at the smoke trail that was already forming and led down a street.

The kid leaned to his side, inspecting the smoke fascinated. “Thanks, smokey guy!” The grin got even more sparkly than before. Smoker just nodded as reply.

In a fraction of a second, the kid had already passed him and run through a group of marines, following the trail of smoke. His men whispered to themselves and Smoker could understand why. You only meet a kid like that once.

Maybe he should go by a certain bar to reminisce over that one time he saw someone with a similar aura to the kid… it was almost funny.    

 

~*B*~

Bartolomeo was about to enter his favorite bar when he heard the old man inside talking animatedly and a younger voice cheer for more tales about the famous Gol D. Roger.

“The Killer Giant… this gash is what killed him,” the old man told one of the many tales he loved so much, “But he was really something. His last words were: Roger. No one can touch you…”

The mobster leaned against the wall instead of going into the bar. He liked to listen to the tales but he did have a reputation to keep up. He couldn’t be seen listening to the tales about a pirate long gone when he had a job to do that needed him to look as evil and threatening as he could. And that image just wouldn’t come from sitting at the old man’s feet, listening attentively to the animatedly told tales.

“Gol D. Roger,” the old bar keeper continued, voice now muffled since he turned down his volume. He had to strain his ears to hear him say, “He’s the only pirate that truly didn’t fear the dangers of the Grandline.”

And he’ll be the only one who would in the near future, Bartolomeo thought, lost in thought. If only there were someone brave enough to continue on the pirate king’s path. He’d love to hear the tales come to live once again.

“…but now, everyone has passed on.”

Yes, and with them any real pirate spirit. It was best to just stay out of that mess that people called piracy. No one there was worth risking his life for.

“I’m going to the Grandline.”

Bartolomeo looked up, straight at the wall before him. “Huh?”, he mumbled just as the old man did the same.

“Pirates really should be like him. That’s why I went out to sea… to go and find the One Piece. I’m gonna be Pirate King!”

He wasn’t sure who had stumbled into the old fool’s bar but the kid definitely had spunk. He liked him although he was sure that he was just a dreamer without any kind of future. The dreamers never had any chance for a future out on the Grandline; hell, most didn’t even make it farther than Loguetown on their way out. The smoke-man that guarded the city like a well-trained dog was picking them off like flowers and he was starting to crack down on the mafia and gangs as well, now that most pirates do no longer dare to stop in his territory.

The old man wheezed, “That’s a crazy thing to say!” and he could only agree with the old man. But he wondered where the happiness in his voice came from, considering that he just told the kid off.

“Drinks on the house!”

Bartolomeo huffed. _He_ never got drinks on the house. The geezer never gave him any. The old man needed his priorities set straight – after this, maybe. He should know who protected his ass from the gangs swarming around the place.

Faster than he could blink, he saw a young boy flit past him, up the stairs that led down to this god-forsaken bar, clutching a straw hat so that it would not fly away.

The mobster could not help but let his gaze linger on the figure until he disappeared. Then he decided to enter the bar.

“Did I hear ‘drinks on the house’?”, he growled at the old man who only waved him off.

“Not for you they aren’t.” There was still a bit off happiness left in his voice. No, not happiness… more like excitement. As if he was expecting something interesting to happen soon.

Bartolomeo sat down on one of the old wooden chairs. They felt like they’d break any moment under his weight just like he loved it. “No wonder you don’t make any money and have to close the bar.”

The old man started laughing. “Not if I take all your money, I don’t.”

He cackled, “I’ll take the rum then.”

While he sat there, drinking, he could even hear the old bar keeper hum while he polished up some glasses. He left the money on the table just like he always did and he expected the bartender to ignore his departure like he always did but today was just too off for a normal scene like that.

“Kiddo,” the old man called out, “Today, something special will happen. I have a feeling in my old bones, they never lie. If you got time, you might wanna spend it at the execution platform.”

He blinked, unsure what to say. When he turned around, he waved the old man goodbye.

 

~*Z*~

“I’ll give you two hundred thousand beli for this sword! You’ll then have a total of three hundred thousand beli! You could buy three swords for that money!”, the shop clerk pushed zealously.

Zoro on the other hand was running out of patience quickly. Why couldn’t people just accept ‘no’ for an answer?! First Luffy, then the shit cook that always had to rope him into some conflict and now this wannabe salesman. “I won’t sell the sword,” he snarled. That didn’t keep the man shut up for long though. “I’ll give you three hundred thousand beli?”

“Huh?” he used his ‘stop-talking-shit’ tone of voice that he used to shut up the swirly eyebrow but the guy still wouldn’t back down.

“Five hundred thousand beli?”

Zoro was about to tell the guy where he could cram his money into because he was not going to sell his most important possession, not in a lifetime and not to some strange guy he had just met when the bell rang as the door opened.

That’s when his luck turned even worse and he froze in his place with his mouth wide open as a girl walked in. A girl that he remembered should’ve been dead for years. Why was Kuina walking around like nothing ever happened to her?!

“I’ve come to pick up my sword. Is Shigure ready?”, she asked cheerfully, completely ignoring Zoro standing next to her.

The old man flicked his tongue at the young woman, eyes darting between her and Zoro, having trouble to decide which of these people to cater to first. In the end, he must’ve decided that it was smarter to get rid of the woman first and then get back to the deal of his lifetime.

“Wait here, I’ll be back with your sword soon”, he growled at the blue-haired woman and left his counter unwillingly. “You! Don’t move!”, he pointed at Zoro and gave him a glare that was supposed to be intimidating but that had no effect on the already turned-to-stone swordsman.

That’s when ‘Kuina’ finally noticed Zoro standing next to her and began smiling. “Hello, are you new in town? I visit this store quite often but I have never seen you here.”

Zoro gulped. He was not ready for any kind of conversation, not now, not here, not in this situation. “Uh, well, I’m just… passing by.”

“You are? Well, where are you headed? There are not many trav-“

_CRASH!_

Zoro would’ve normally not liked any disrespect to swords, but when a barrel full of them hit the ground, he was more than happy to not be the center of Kuina’s attention anymore. The woman turned around and stared wide-eyed at the mess in the shop and at the girl in the middle of it all, holding one of the crappy swords in her hands, half-sheathed.

“JAYNA! What have you _done_?!”

The girl in question winced and grabbed the sword even tighter. “Sor-ry, Tashi-shigi…I ju-just thought I-I’d look a-at one and th-then…” she waved down at the swords scattered on the ground. An awkward smile on her lips, Jayna put the barrel back into its correct position and let the sword she had looked at glide into it with a ‘thunk’. The Marines really had useless personnel in the East Blue.

Kuina… no, Tashigi, sighed heavily and started to berate the girl. Zoro didn’t listen to what she was saying because it was just too much to process all at once. And he also didn’t want to listen because she was just too similar to his friend. That one liked to rant sometimes, too. he slipped his sword back into its position before he started moving towards the mess and the girl that already started picking up swords. “I’ll help her. I wanted to sift through that barrel, anyway.”

“Eh? but don’t you already have a swo-“

“GAH! MY SWORDS!”, the shopkeeper yelled and almost dropped Shigure when he reentered the public part of his shop, “You better pray nothing got damaged! I’ll make you pay for that!”

Zoro couldn’t have been happier when Ku-Tashigi turned around and had her hands full with calming down the shopkeeper. He turned his attention back to the girl that did not look like a living version of dead childhood memories.

“You need to be more careful. Swords are no toys and that could’ve gone wrong easily. If one of those swords had unsheathed itself and cut you on its fall, you wouldn’t get away unscathed.” He put three swords in the barrel. All three of them were of a poor quality. Nothing that would survive more than a few rounds against anyone stronger than your usual thug.

He went to grab the next sword – shitty again – but couldn’t put it in the barrel because the girl had leaned over the wooden cylinder, leaning towards him. “I didn’t think you’d care so much about a stranger, Roronoa Zoro.”

Jayna was grinning at him in a way that reminded Zoro too much of corrupt Marine officials. He had his run-ins with them often before, he knew the warning signs. She could’ve been intimidating if it weren’t for all the times she bit her own tongue in that one sentence. Not intimidating in the way that a good fighter was but she was damn close to the way Nami had him on edge. It must be a woman thing.

Her eyes flitted down as she saw his hands tense around the sword that he was holding. She leaned back, “No worries, I won’t tell Officer Tashigi.”

Officer? So the Kuina look-a-like was a marine, too? He had some rotten luck today.

“But tell me, how is your captain doing? Is he at the execution platform yet?” Zoro tensed at the knowing smile she shot him. These women meant trouble. One made him uneasy and the other knew way too much for it to be good for them. He sincerely hoped that nothing had happened to Luffy.

_Thu-thu-thunk!_

Three more swords landed back in the barrel. All three didn’t seem to be what Zoro was looking for. he was slowly wishing for the other woman to interrupt their conversation but the shopkeeper was really nagging at her.

“Hey, do you have place for one more member on your crew?”

Zoro watched Jayna suspiciously. “The captain decides that.”

She put some other swords into the barrel while humming. “Five people going up against the Grandline? You think that is wise?”

Zoro’s eyes narrowed. “Well, good thing our crew has six members.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have told a marine how many members there were. Maybe that meant consequences later on. But Zoro didn’t care. It was just too satisfying to watch the know-it-all startle and drop the sword she was holding (“Hey! Watch it, young lady!”). She caught herself too quickly for Zoro’s taste.

“Of course. The Going Merry is a member, too.” Her smirk grew in size.

She even knew their ship’s name? What was up with that marine? He made a note not to give her even more information.

When the girl leaned down to pick up the last sword that was left on the ground, she seemed to hesitate. It was a feint movement, just the fingertips flinching back from the sword’s hilt, but Zoro caught it.

“What are you doing? Pick it up al-“

“DON’T TOUCH THE SWORD!” the shopkeeper yelled from the opposite site of the room, Tashigi jerking away from his extended arm that pointed straight at Jayna who stumbled back from the sword, looking... excited?

Zoro cocked an eyebrow. Now this was interesting. Maybe he would go home with a good sword. He leaned down and picked up the sword that the girl did not dare touch. “Hoh?”, he smirked when he felt almost electrified by the touch on the hilt. “That sword…”

The shopkeeper yelped and started shaking badly.

“That sword…!”

Tashigi ignored the state the man was in, focused on the sword in Zoro’s hand as she stumbled over and started turning pages in a book until she found the right one. “Found it! It’s really Sandai Kitetsu!”

The woman started ranting about the different degrees of swords and how they were classified but the only thing Zoro could hear… could see, no, the only thing he could _feel_ in that very moment was its aura and its energy, radiating off the blade. Malevolent and blood-thirsty as could be.

“No way! I won’t sell it!” the shop clerk yelled at them, hiding his face as good as he could behind his upper body.

“This sword…”, Zoro breathed solemnly, “is cursed.”

The man behind the counter gulped audibly, “You knew?”

Jayna snickered quietly. Did she know that, too? Zoro was sure that she had not felt it but rather known about it beforehand. Clever girl. The sword could’ve cut her arm off if it really wanted to.

“No. I feel it.” Zoro answered the question.

 “Starting with the first generation, the sword were all great blades but they were also cursed ones. The swordsmen who have used the Kitetsu over the years all met a bloody fate. Tragic and mysterious deaths, none of them desirable. No swordsman nowadays would take the risk to wield a Kitetsu in battle anymore.”, the shop owner explained, guilt pressing down on him as it took him all of his strength to keep standing. His arms trembled like they were made of sticks that were about to snap under his weight.

Tashigi breathed in air heavily and immediately bowed to Zoro. “I am sorry! I didn’t know about the curse! I should not have recommended it to you! Please forgive me!”

“It’s still a good sword. You just have to know how to use it right,” Jayna commented flatly from the sidelines and earned a glare from Tashigi.

“Jayna, you can’t possibly-“

“No”, Zoro interrupted Tashigi, “She’s right. I’ll take it.” Zoro held the sword up and it reflected the light in a dark purple gleam back to his face. With a wide grin he said, “I like it.”

The sword seller slammed his hands on the counter, “NO! I won’t sell it! I won’t be responsible for your death! That’s blood that I do not want on my hands.”

Zoro chuckled, “I just need to be lucky enough for the curse not to get me.” With those words, he threw the sword into the air and extended his arm. Tashigi gasped in horror while Jayna’s smirk was now reaching from one ear to the other. Zoro didn’t mind as long as he could concentrate enough on the sword.

Sandai Kitetsu reached the highest point and began to descent, spinning and spinning and spinning, down, toward Zoro’s arm.

It was absolutely quiet when the blade came close enough to cut his arm off but it slid past. Zoro felt the back of the sword grazing his arm but then in the next moment, the sensation was gone and the sword had sunk into the wooden floor.

Zoro grinned as Tashigi sank to the floor. Those two girls knew how to pick a good sword. “Hey, you two, go and pick out another one for me.”

“W-Wait!” the owner yelled and ran into the back of his store only to return fast as the wind with another katana. He pulled away the cloth and revealed a black lacquered sheath and hilt, wonderfully crafted and probably way too expensive for Zoro.

“This is the best piece I have in my store!” the middle-aged man took the sword and pulled it from its cover. The blade looked wonderful and Zoro felt like it was calling for him.

“It’s one of the fifty Ryouwazamono, Yubashiri.”, he sounded proud as a father who was showing off his children.

Zoro turned around to face the shop keeper. “I can’t afford it.”

Jayna’s laugh in the background irritated him. it’s not his fault that he had no money, damnit!

“It’s a present, you idiot!”, she explained in an annoying tone.

The middle-aged man grinned, “That young one is right about that. I give this to you as a gift. And I don’t want any money for Sandai Kitetsu, either.”

Zoro grinned. Now this was something he could get used to.

“With that you have three well-known swords at your side, young man. I hope you use them efficiently.”, the man told him and grinned back.

Tashigi blinked confusedly. “Three swords?”

 

~*B*~

Buggy liked it flashy. He liked his ship flashy, he liked his crew flashy, and he liked the places where he’d hang to be just as flashy. Of course he would choose a café that was situated on the main road and use it for his strategy meetings. No matter what Alvida said, it was a brilliant idea of him.

“I am going to collect all of the famous swords. I will free them from pirates and people like Roronoa Zoro who will only use them for their own gains.”

“Oh? So are you going to take away my swords as well?”

Buggy recognized that voice. That was one flashy swordsman that was part of the Strawhat crew. He didn’t know the women but he had made bad experiences with women that hung around the Strawhats. They could pay, too.

“Ah? A-ah! No! I don’t want them for myself and you seem to be a nice person! There is absolutely no reason for me to take away any of your swords…”

As he looked up he saw them sit down at the table next to him. It really was Zoro, that flashy bastard. The guy was apparently building a harem because he was escorted by two women, one with blue hair, the other purple.

“Hey boss, isn’t tha-”

“Quiet! I don’t want them to notice us! You hear? We attack them once they have let their guard down,” Buggy snapped at his subordinate.

He observed the group as they ordered something to drink and the blue-haired woman kept on talking and talking and talking. When everyone began to laugh a little at something she said, he gave the signal. “Go get the blue one.”

He felt so good when his plan went off without any problems and the blue-haired woman was held by knife point by one of his lower subjects.

Buggy ripped off his cloak and put a foot on the table to look flashier, “KYAHAHAHA! RORONOA ZORO, WE MEET AGAIN! I WI-“

“You are Roronoa Zoro?”, the blue-haired one blurted out.

“…Hello?” Buggy was not happy with the shift of events. He was supposed to be the center and now, he suddenly wasn’t anymore? Because the woman was now shooting death glares toward Zoro as if the knife at her throat did not exist at all.

His subordinate looked over to him, wanting orders, advice, anything he could get on how to react but Buggy himself had no clue what was going on.

“You dared to trick me?! I thought you were a nice guy?! But you were _Roronoa Zoro all along?!”_

The said swordsman muttered something along the lines of ‘shit’ before he bolted out of the café as fast as he could and left Buggy with a hostage that was no longer needed. “Eh?”

The purple-haired girl was the next one to stand up and run away, shouting, “I will try to catch him, Tashigi! You go take on Buggy the clown!”

Now, a woman vs his whole crew? What a stupi- a man flew by and barely missed his head. As Buggy turned, he saw how only half of his crewmate was visible because the other was buried in the wall of the café. When he turned back, he saw that half of his crew was lying on the ground, some bleeding. The woman stood in the middle of the fallen, demonic aura playing around her very being as she slowly moved through the ranks of Buggy’s mooks and cut them down one by one.

“Captain Buggy, please help!”, one guy shouted as he was penetrated by a sword. Buggy flinched. It looked painful. He had seen worse but that didn’t mean he forgot how painful a sword in your stomach could be.

He only had one choice left. He didn’t want to use it now but he had already blown his cover, he needed something to make sure he and his crew could disappear until they were ready for the main spectacle.

Nervously, he pulled out his secret escape strategy: a smoke bomb. “Everyone, grab a wounded mate and prepare to get the flashy hell out of here!”, he yelled and put his hand in the air, ready to drop the bomb as soon as everyone was able to run.

3…

2…

1…

_POOF!_

~*A*~

Suddenly a cloud of smoke filled the lady’s rest room and Alvida started to panic because there was one person in town who was known for smoking out pirates left and right. She did not think that he’d be as much of an asshole and attack a lady while she was unguarded and doing her business.

She immediately ran out and the one thing she saw throughout the smoke was a flash of green that darted past the door and then something crashed into the door and sent Alvida jerking forward and face-landing on the ground. The female pirate captain was. Not. Pleased.

She jolted up and stalked over to the other person lying on the ground. Alvida grabbed the next bit of cloth she got her fingers on and pulled the person that send her down closer to her face. “You! Do you have anything to say before I send you to an early grave?”

Through the smoke she could make out a pair of eyes staring back at her. She definitely didn’t like the tone of voice the girl used, “Get out of the way, ugly. I need to catch up with Zoro.”

A vein popped on her forehead. Her grin took on malevolent overtones. “Who are you calling ugly, you chubby shit?” She let the girl plummet down to the ground again and Alvida stomped down on what she hoped was the girl’s face.

Her foot was kicked away by the girl she still could not clearly see, closely followed by a wannabe punch that was directed away from Alvida’s perfect body via her powers. She laughed as loudly and obnoxiously as she could.

Someone opened a window and the smoke was clearing out. Alvida could see that the person facing her was wearing a marine uniform that looked beat up. There was an imprint of her heels on the shoulder part of the uniform. Her mouth dropped a bit. Not what she wanted to hit.

The marine girl slowly got up and scanned Alvida from toe to hair. “You call me chubby, old lady? Wasn’t it you who was so fat that it would insult whales to compare ’em to you? Sure, you may have lost that weight but have you heard of the yo-yo effect?”

That was it, Alvida did not want to hear any more of it. She was going to do some pounding.

She grabbed behind her only to find that her bat was nowhere to be found. Tch. She had left it with Buggy. Speaking of which, where was that clown…?

“Buggy! Where are you?!”

Alvida did not think that her infuriated shout would cause the clown to crash through a wall and swipe her off her feet and continue running. That was not what she wanted to do right now and she was confused as to what has caused that action.

Before she could demand an answer though, another woman climbed out of the hole in the wall and looked possessed. The bloody sword in her hand and her glare did not help create a more positive image.

“Sorry, babe, but we have to bail right now!”, the clown yelled in her face.

Alvida wanted to object but the crazy swordshag did not help in the least. “I will bash your face in later, chubby!”, she shouted over the rumble of collapsing walls and pumped a fist into the air to intimidate the stupid girl she left behind. She was so going to make her pay for ever comparing her to a whale!... It was bad enough that that had happened once before.

 

~*C*~

Coby didn’t know how he got lost. He was following Helmeppo and Garp and the others one moment and then the next, he found himself alone in a street bustling with strangers. He also had no clue how he managed to walk to the one place where a building was destroyed and an angry Tashigi yelled for more marines to follow a mad clown who was escaping. He wanted to help, of course, but Tashigi just waved him off and before he could follow, she was already gone.

“Wow, what has happened here?”, Coby heard someone gasp near him, “It’s like the one time I fought a fishman and he had this crazy exploding tentacles.”

“If you are so mighty, why don’t you carry my shopping bags for me? It shouldn’t be too heavy for you then.”, a woman snapped back at the incredulous tale.

“Ah, bu-but Nami, why… that’s not fair! You know I have I-can’t-carry-bags-disease. Do you want my arms to swell to the size of balloons?”, the former voice complained. It did not help much because the same guy groaned wearily a while after. When Coby turned around, he saw that a long-nosed guy with curly black hair was carrying several bags stuffed to the brink with clothing articles.

A woman with short orange hair stood next to him, looking very happy.

Coby did not expect a third person to be in the group but there was also a very charming-looking blond man with a swirly eyebrow who was puffing out a small ball of smoke.

“I wonder what happened here…”, the curly eyebrow guy contemplated.

“Anyway,” the woman took the command, “we don’t have much time. We should start sailing before the storm gets here and for that, we need to find that stupid idiot we call captain…”

Coby was a bit shocked to see the blond man turn into a spaghetti – that was the only way he could describe the sudden boneless structure that allowed the man to move like a piece of noodle in a wind, creating waves that travelled through his whole body.

“Nami-swan~! I’ll do anything for you~! I will go look for the shitty captain and the moss head this instaaaaant! No need to worry!”, sang the blond guy.

Nami sighed and kneaded her temples. “Look, Sanji, that’s nice of you but I better join you in the search. You never know what those morons might be up to. Usopp?”, pronouncing the name of the long-nosed man, Nami’s voice went from irritated to so sugary, it could only mean danger was approaching, “you carry that fish back to the ship.”

Usopp almost dropped the bags he was carrying when Sanji got closer and heaved a very big tuna onto Usopp’s shoulders. “Are you _crazy_ , woman?!”

Sanji already started growling, “What did you just call Nami-swan?” when Nami clapped in her hands and got the attention of her companions back onto her.

“Who else could carry that fish back? I and Sanji have to go look for the rest of our crew, so you’re the only one left,” she reasoned flatly.

Usopp was still not happy with his job as he belted out, “Nonsense, witch! Just help me get this back to the ship and all three of us can go looking!”

Coby had seen enough to know that these people needed some help. They might not be the friendliest but at least they were trying. “Um, do you need any help?”, he asked them with a smile.

When the three faces turned to him, he suddenly felt so small, confronted with the intense heat of their discussion. Before they could ask any questions that would make Coby take back his decision to do a good deed, he offered, “I could help carry that tuna and you can go look for the rest of your friends. I… don’t have a lot to do right now anyways…”

He saw their gazes wandering down to his uniform. They frowned and Coby thought they would decline when Nami pushed through her two friends to get to Coby and shook his hand. “Oh, what a nice offer! Of course we’ll take it. but you really don’t have to carry it all the way to our ship, it’s totally okay if you help Usopp here carry it till the outskirts of the town.”

“Nami-swan, are you sure about this?”, Sanji asked looking not all too sure about that decision. Coby wondered why. Did these people have bad experiences with marines before? It’s not like he hadn’t heard of and met with some very corrupt officials but would that really be enough to make citizens doubt every marine they met?

Nami just gave Sanji and Usopp a… warning? Scowl before turning back to Coby and smiling as usual. “Thanks again! Usopp will show you the way, right, Usopp?”

Usopp’s reply was more a mumbling than agreeing to the task ahead of him. He seemed eager to load some of Nami’s shopping bags on Coby, too, though.

Coby felt how his breath temporarily left his lungs when the fish got heaved onto his shoulders. Moreover, he was not happy with how he could not see a lot because Usopp gave him the tail and it constantly got in the way, yanking off his glasses.

They walked a bit in silence, the way cleared itself when people saw the big fish approaching them. No one wanted to get bashed out of the way by the dead animal. After Coby finally got used to all the weight, he collected his people skills and asked, “Are you guys merchants?”

Usopp almost tripped over air before he caught himself, “No! No, we are…uh, adventurers. We’re headed for the Grandline to find us some unknown island and solve all the mysteries and take the gold if there is any.”

Coby oohed now fully invested, “Have you had adventures before?”

Usopp pushed out his breast as good as he could in his current situation and held his chin up high. “Kid, we had so many adventures, I can’t even remember them all. Once, I and my friends found an island in the sky, you know?”

Coby was not whether he should believe that or not. That was when he remembered that he never believed in devil fruits as well and then he met Luffy who proved that it was no myth but reality. Then he even found out that Luffy was the grandson of Garp the Hero! Garp the marine Vice-Admiral! Even though Luffy himself was a pirate! Talk about impossible, right? So, why wouldn’t there be islands in the sky right?

He was pulled out of his thoughts when he crashed into Usopp’s back. “Oof! Why are we stopping?”, he asked disoriented.

Usopp took a while to answer, “Sorry, there was just a girl blocking the path. Looked like someone had stomped on her. I didn’t want to get in her way. She had this evil stare that Nami gives us all the time…”

Coby looked around but he couldn’t see anything unusual – well, maybe that was also because his glasses had been knocked off again.

They began moving again and as Usopp did not want to talk more about that incident, Coby decided not to bring it up and ask questions about it either. Instead, he went back to the previous topic. “So, you visit a sky island?”

“Oh yes, and there were a lot of beautiful angels sitting on a beach and playing their harps. We also met god; he’s not as nice as people make him out to be. My captain got into trouble with him, so how could I not jump into the battle and help him out? I shot god in the face and then he fell backwards down a cloud…”

Coby wondered if that was the reason why Luffy wanted to set sail as a pirate: to be free to experience such great adventures that only pirates and adventurers can see with their own eyes. It must be a great life and he’d like to go on an adventure in the sky himself one time in his life, too. Maybe he could. Who knows where the Marine had their bases, maybe they had one on such a sky island, too. 

“Oh, shoot…”

Suddenly, Coby could feel the weight of the fish shift and his part becoming way heavier than it had been just a moment ago. He caught his glasses before they could be knocked off but it didn’t do him any good because the massive fish was blocking his entire view. “Usopp?!”

“Sorry, Coby!”, he heard Usopp’s voice from a distance, “S-s-someone suspicious is near our ship and I have to check on it!”

Coby was about to drag the fish behind him, “Wait for me! I can help you!”

Usopp’s footsteps stopped. “A-ah, thanks. Sure… Wait! NO! He’s got a l-l-lion with him! the g-great Usopp can’t p-p-possibly let you enda-danger yourself like that!” The long-nosed sniper began sprinting away at high speeds again, his shoes clacking on the stone ground.

Lion?! Coby would not let Usopp run into that kind of danger alone. He might be an adventurer like the world has never seen a second of but he could need some help for sure. Now, what was he going to do with the fish? He wouldn’t be able to carry it all the way, not with Usopp picking up speed and him not knowing which ship to look for…

 

~*J&Y*~

“Hey punks! Get out of the way! What’s your problem?”, the big imposing figure of a fat pirate loomed over the bounty hunters. Johnny took a deep breath and glanced at his partner who was in turn looking back at the girl behind them.

Splattered all over the street were the remains of five scoops of various ice cream types. Johnny could see the strawberry flavored one dripping from the pirate’s pants on to the floor.

Yosaku saw the girl who was petrified and could not even cry. Her father stood at the inner circle of the crowd they had attracted and did not dare come any closer.

“Get out of the way? Then what? Let you hurt the girl?”, Johnny growled. The slightly smaller pirate behind the looming, grinning fat shadow took a step back but still did not let go of his sword.

“We don’t think so!”, the bounty hunters bellowed out in unison and unsheathed their swords, crossing them in their middle.

Sadly, the pirates did not seem very impressed if their snorts were anything to go by. “Are you going to play the heroes? Really? We will end you here, you know? Now’s your chance to leave and we will forget anything that happened here.”

Yosaku could hear the father shout something from the sidelines but he shut up when one of the two pirates glared at him.

“Oh shut up, old fart,” growled the bigger pirate and contorted his already ugly face into a grimace, “Even if they win by luck, don’t think they’ll let you off the hook for free. There’s no such thing as selflessness.”

That was Johnny and Yosaku’s signal to grin back, “Don’t worry, we’ll just cash in on your bounty afterwards.”

“Oh?”, the pirates’ stance shifted and they lowered themselves into a much more aggressive position. Like animals about to pounce their prey, their hands glided to the swords’ hilt and was about to draw any moment.

The bounty hunters stiffened for a short moment before they took on the same positions. One pirate for each of them. Seven million for the one, five million for the other. It was their chance to cash in and make their real journey possible. This was not only about the money; this was a test whether or not they can do it. Could they take on someone who was ready to leave for the Grandline? Someone who thought they were a big shot and ready to wreck some havoc where the big fish play. This was their chance to proof themselves and gather the resolve needed…

_SLASH!_

“AH! MY HEEL?!” the pirate worth less started to scream in agony and fell to his knees, traumatized by the blood seeping to the ground. Just when he was about to turn around, the knob of a rusty old sword collided with his temple, knocking him out straight. As he fell to the ground, his face hit the ground dead on and some of his teethe went flying.

Yosaku stared at the poor guy who had just been attacked from behind and had gone down without even a chance of fighting back.

Johnny on the other hand stared at the woman sporting a blood-thirsty grin. In his shock he wondered why she looked like she had been in an exploding building. It was a question he did not want to be answered, because really, he expected the answer to be ‘because she blew it up’. She swiped her sword to the side and the blood drew a line whose color clashed with the peppery mint green ice cream on the ground.

The remaining pirate turned and stared at his fallen friend and back to the woman. “How could you… HOW DO YOU DARE HURT MY BROTHER!!! YOU’LL PAY, MARINE!”

Johnny and Yosaku both watched frozen how the pirate stormed at the marine woman, holding his sword high over his head. Some of the citizens on that part of the spectators’ circle ran away screaming.

“Don’t we know that big sis from somewhere?”, asked Johnny puzzled.

Yosaku furrowed his brows before he answered, “Yeaaah, I think we do… wasn’t she one of the marines at Cocoyashi?”

Johnny nodded. “That makes sense to me.”

The woman took a step toward the pirate running at her and simply rammed her sword into his leg when he passed her in his miscalculations. “AGH!”, he spat and his sword fell onto the ground.

The woman watched amusedly how the guy struggled to his feet again, fighting against the gashing wound that was now also decorating his strawberry ice cream pants. “I’m going to kill you for this!” With those words he stormed towards her once again. She waited until he got close enough and then sidestepped and rammed her sword hilt into his back so he tripped over.

Before the pirate could get up, the marine started to stomp on the back of his head.

Ones.

Twice.

Thrice.

Four times.

Johnny and Yosaku watched on, horrified by the way someone dedicated to the sword would treat her enemies but also kind of impressed because they did not think anyone in the marine could be so brutal and not be ranked a captain, at least.

They got to seven stomps on the pirate they were already feeling empathy with when the marine finally stopped. Johnny’s heart almost stopped when he saw that the girl they were protecting as sneaked around them and got to the marine, pulling on her trouser leg. “What?”, the marine asked in a sickeningly sweet voice.

“Thank you for saving the two men!”, the girl said and pointed at the bounty hunters.

“…Did she just say we were saved by the crazy big sis?” Yosaku did not want to answer Johnny’s question. He really did not want to.

The marine stared at the girl, “Yeah, no problem. Now go to your dad, he seems worried.”

That snapped the bounty hunters out of their trance like state and they promptly stomped their way over to the marine.

“HEY YOU!”, Yosaku called out indignantly. His finger pointed straight to the woman.

Johnny barked out with the same courage, “You stole our catch!”

The marine glared at the bounty hunters and then down at her foot that was still placed on the head of the unconscious pirate. “So?”

Both bounty hunters gulped heavily. “So?! You took our kill! That was our money!”

Slowly the marine lifted her foot. Yosaku was not too happy to see that blodd was dripping from its sole. He kind of hoped that the blood had already been there before any stomping action had occurred.

The woman looked at them, contemplating. What, Johnny didn’t know. He was not eager to find out either.

“How much?”, she then simply asked.

“… twelve million.”

“Great,” she simply commented dryly and reached out with one hand, “I take six million and you get those two,” she pointed to the beat-up pirates.

Yosaku and Johnny couldn’t believe their ears. Was this woman serious?! “Look, big sis. We will not hand over that much money. Why do you even think we have that much on us?”

“Arlong.”

“…Right. But still, no six million. We’d give you one million though.”

She belted out an unamused laugh, “One? Are you kidding? I did most of the work here! Five and a half.”

“Two.”

“Five.”

“Three!”

“Four and a half.”

“Three and a half.”

The marine looked straight into Johnny’s eyes and then into Yosaku’s. “Four million and not one beri less if you want to get your hands on those two idiots.”

The way she said that did not comfort Yosaku in the least. He glanced over to his partner and he sure as hell was also not ready to bargain anymore, so they just nodded and handed over the money.

The marine big sis took the money and suspiciously counted every beri of it until she was satisfied and smiled a very fake plastic smile. “Nice doing business with you,” she chirped and began walking away.

The bounty hunters were about to let go of their breath they didn’t realize they had been holding when she stopped walking and turned around again. “Hey, which way to the execution platform?” The bounty hunters quickly pointed at the next turn and watched the marine disappear.

“…Hey Johnny?”

“Yeah Yosaku?”

One turned to face the other, “I just realized something.”

The other cocked an eyebrow, “Yeah, what is it?”

“As a marine, she would’ve turned in the pirates without getting any money…”

Both blinked at each other and were sprinting down the street toward the corner they had earlier indicated but the woman had disappeared in the crowd of people, nowhere to be seen.

“…shit.”

 

~*L*~

The execution platform was one of the greatest places that Luffy had ever seen. After he climbed it, he could view the whole of the plaza and all the people on it. He howled of sheer happiness and excitement that he was able to see the same view that the king of pirates had seen when he had died. And it was beautiful, Luffy could understand why someone would be okay with dying here.

Not that he planned on that. He was going to have an adventure, so he’d have to get past this place and go to other islands and find the mystery stuff that made them worth exploring. He wanted his adventure. An adventure no one else had ever gone on before.

He also couldn’t really tell you, how this situation came to be either. All he knew was that suddenly he could feel something heavy hit his neck and he was sailing toward the wooden structure and slammed into it head first.

Maybe it was because he made Bufoon - ah no, Buggy – mad by getting his name wrong? It was a bit off an overkill that he wanted to kill him for that.

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” he drawled in a bored tone of voice, hoping that the clown would calm down now.

“THAT WON’T SAVE YOU, BRAT!”, the clown screeched furiously.

Well, Luffy had tried at least. He was not happy when Buggy put more force on his foot that was pressing down on Luffy’s hat. He hoped that Shanks’ present wouldn’t get damaged.

“Looks like you won’t amount to anything, after all.”

Something in Luffy stirred at those words. No one would define what he was supposed to do and how far he could go. That was something that only Luffy himself would ever decide for himself. “I AM THE MAN WHO WILL BE KING OF THE PIRATES!”, he bellowed and his words vibrated over the plaza through the solemn atmosphere.

The crowd began to murmur but Luffy didn’t care what they might think about him or his dream. He told them what he was going to do and they would watch him do it. he didn’t even notice how Buggy held his sabre up high, ready to cut down on his neck.

“THIS EXECUTION IS CANCELLED!”, Luffy’s shout was answered by a just as fierce group he knew all too well.

Buggy was breaking into one of his monologues again that Luffy couldn’t care less about. “

“ZORO! SANJI! NA-ghb!”, he garbled as his face hit the ground and he tasted the wood and dust beneath him.

“Shut it!”, Buggy hissed at him and continued to flashily tell his plan to Luffy’s crew who already started to take out the clown’s crew and cut their way through the crowd towards their captain.

When Luffy got his head back up, he watched in admiration as his crew fought their way towards him bravely. He briefly thought about his childhood and his two brothers who would’ve done the same thing. Luffy was sure that he had found the right members for his crew; not that he has ever doubted it to begin with.

“This is where it ends for your captain!”, the clown laughed in glee.

Luffy thought that maybe, he was right. Sabo didn’t make it to complete his dream either. He wouldn’t be all too sad though because if there was one thing he knew, it was that he had chosen the right crew and they could make it without him as well if they chose to. And he had found a family in them and that was more than he could’ve ever hoped for. a grin spread from one of his ears to the other. He should at least apologize in earnest that he wouldn’t be there on their adventure.

 

~*S*~

Sanji didn’t quite believe that this particular day was real. it was just too extraordinary to not be imagined. First he saw a beautiful woman that had no equal then he won a fine piece of fish. Afterwards, he witnessed his captain being favored by god because there is no other explanation of the lightning strike hitting at the perfect moment and Luffy getting out of the wooden pile of trash that was burning ghostly blue without any harm.

They also got rid of the shitty moss head down the line. That event had been hard on Sanji as the shitty swordsman was confronted by a cute woman who seemed to have been wronged by him. Sanji wanted to help her out and beat the idiot into a pulp but he also understood that it was not his place. Someone needed to protect Nami, too, and he didn’t trust his captain or the other idiot with that job.

When they ran into another lady, Sanji was no longer certain if he had chosen the right career path – the marine seemed to be loaded with women… not that he would ever leave his Nami-swan behind. He was just contemplating an alternate universe version’s choice, of course.

“Monkey D. Luffy! Wait up!”, the woman shouted after them.

His joy received a damper. “Hey, shitty captain! Did you do something to this woman?!”, he snarled, reminded of the scenario they had just passed.

His captain turned to him and blinked, “I have never seen her!”

“She’s probably after our bounty or just very dedicated to her job. Let’s just continue running,” Nami-swan offered in her never-ending wisdom.

Sanji could feel his legs turn into spaghetti. “Yes, of course, Nami-swan~!”, he sung.

“It doesn’t look like she’ll lose our trail anytime soon. You guys keep going straight and I’ll deal with this,” the other male dumbass offered neutrally.

“HEY! Don’t hurt any wom-!”

“Sanji.”, Nami warned in her charming no-nonsense voice and he shut up promptly.

Luffy looked at the idiot contemplatively before he asked, “You think you can manage?”

“Of course I can. She doesn’t look like much.”

Sanji resented that comment; no one should ever talk down on women like that. The marine was clearly trying her best. Yet Sanji didn’t dare say that out loud because Nami was still giving him a warning glare. It was okay, Sanji consoled himself, he’d have plenty of time to kick that message into the thick skull of that one particular male mess.

Luffy nodded and a grin spread over his face, “Okay. We’ll meet back at the Merry. See ya!”

The dumbass smiled and nodded and fell back. Sanji tried to look back but Nami took a sharp left turn and the walls of the old, pristine houses blocked his view.

 

~*ROB*~

When Jayna slid to a halt on the wet ground in front of me with a dumbfounded expression decorating her face, I could not stop the shit-eating smirk spreading on my lips. I had been looking forward to this moment for such a long time and I was going to have as much fun as I could get out of it.

“Hi there,” I greeted her.

“Who the hell are you?!”, she blurted simultaneously.

Yes, this had definitely been the right choice. I pulled out my notebook from my pocket and prepared to write down whatever great lines she would throw at me.

“Oh? You don’t remember me?”, my grin got even wider. I don’t know how that could be possible when your facial expressions were bound to a body that should have its limits but it definitely enlarged. “We might have not met vis-à-vis before but you should be able to recognize me.”

She continued to blankly stare at me. It reminded me of Luffy in his stupid moments.

“Okay, I know I got a new haircut and all but since you read my fic and thought you could criticize me, you should recognize the rest of the character design.”

All I got was a cocked eyebrow and a suspicious look. I thought that girl would be a bit faster on the pickup.

“I’ve been sending you letters ever since I promoted you to ascended fan.”

If this were an anime episode, you could’ve stopped right now and pinpointed the exact frame she understood that implication and had her ‘oooh’ moment.

“You’re that shitty ROB!?”, she shrieked and her hand instantly moved to her sword but didn’t draw it immediately.

“Yup, I am that guy,” I confirmed still smiling. It took her long enough, “Took you long enough to catch up.” I laughed and leaned against a nearby wall.

“YOU’RE THE ASSHOLE I HAVE TO THANK FOR THIS SHITTY TRIP HERE?!”

I was not fast enough to cover my ears on time. What’s this with women and their sudden volume? Nami did that all the time, too.

“AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU WRITING EVERYTHING DOWN?!”, she demanded.

Note to self: don’t ignore women with swords. The blade buried at least ten centimeters next to my head was not a good sign and I halted my pen, clutching my notebook and getting out of her reach. As soon as she noticed that she could not get me with her kicks while also trying to pull out her sword, she focused her strength and energy on the wall, pulling and kicking and shoving the sword. She even growled at the house as if it was at fault for her predicament.

“You do make a better comic relief character than I anticipated,” I told her, stroking my chin thoughtfully.

Her actions halted and she looked at me, still keeping her death grip on the sword. “What?”

“I didn’t think you could pull off that kind of humor,” I shrugged and waved a hand at her current situation, “I thought I’d have to work with less.”

She turned her attention back to her sword but kept an eye on me nonetheless, “You don’t seem to be interested in working with me in any way. You ass told me to go and rock the boat but you put me in a situation that makes it more than difficult to catch up with Luffy.” She gave up on her sword and turned back to me. she looked at me warily and was tense all over. “Now I got here and could get this story started and then _you_ show up and _hinder_ me at _making this story interesting while also telling me to be ENTERTAINING!_ ”

“Skehehehe!”, I held my stomach while I doubled over, laughing with tears in my eyes. Oh that girl. I needed to get that written down in exactly that wording before I forgot it, so I scribbled it down and hoped I could read it later on. “I never said you should join the Strawhats.”

Jayna began to sound like a fish that had just been pulled out of the water. Which I found to be quite ironic.

“Look, why would you ever think you would join the Strawhats? In a version of this story where I already am with them?”, I kept my body upright with an arm pressed against the building because I was not sure if I could stand on my own while my body was still shaking this much from laughter.

Jayna seemed lost like a puppy that couldn’t find its owner anymore. “But… you’re no One Piece character... this doesn’t make any sense…”

“You haven’t been listening, have you? You’re not in the original One Piece. You’re in my version of it – the one you criticized and signed up to help out with. That means I am the main character here, not you.”

“But…”

“You just show up from time to time and play the antagonistic, evil marine role. Hilarity ensues. I go back to regular Strawhat shenanigans and you disappear for a while again.”

“…Not my story?”

“Nope. It never was your story and it will never be the case. Maybe you get some chapters focusing on what you do in the meantime, but you’re really not that important.”

Jayna looked like her knees would give in any moment and she’d fall onto the wet stones, contemplating every life choice she ever made.

“You could’ve noticed the changes beforehand, you know? Why do you think so many details were different? Surely you couldn’t have believed that your presence was enough of a butterfly effect to cause so many tweaks to the story?”

She looked at me, stupefied. And then at her sword and back at me. She sighed and- okay, I crossed that part out furiously a moment before I hit the ground and landed on my back forcefully, the air getting knocked out of my lungs. Shitty human bodies.

Jayna was sitting on my chest with… a sword in her hand pointed at my neck? Damn, when did she get that out of the wall? I need to look up more when writing.

“If I get rid of your condescending butt that means there would be a vacant spot on the crew, doesn’t it?”, she snarled with a blood-thirsty grin plastered on her face.

I gulped, this was not what I planned. Luckily, I was an omnipotent being and the author of this story. I could just erase this part later on and come up with something humanly possible to escape this situation. The blade pressed down with more pressure and drew droplets of blood from my wonderfully crafted throat. “And you think this would be a smart move why?”

She shrugged lightly, “No one needs to know what happened between the two of us.”

I really chose someone good for this role yet I was not sure if I should be excited about the future… if I were a normal human being. “Try it.”

Jayna frowned before she actually went for it… something was definitely wrong with that girl if she took the life of others so lightly. She grew more and more frustrated when her sword did not move an inch even though she put all her muscle into it. My grin came back with full force as I slipped away and got back on my feet in a same distance. Ugh, wet pants felt so disgusting.

“ _WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU GODDAMN CHEATING R.O.B.?!”_

I crossed my arms in front of me, “That’s called self-defense, I believe. What, you thought I would let you cut me down here and now? The story is just kicking off!”

Jayna fell on her face when I unfroze her body again and her force catapulted her forwards. I watched her and then began slowly walking away and back to the Merry. Jayna took her time shouting something dramatic after me. I anticipated a ‘Damn you, Readi-!’ Oh, I forgot to give her my name, she couldn’t curse me. If she didn’t even recognize me, I could not just work on the assumption that she remembered my name. My fault, I apologize.

I looked over my shoulder. “I believe that I haven’t introduced myself yet. The name’s Reading Oleander Blake. Reading of course being the last name. You can call me Oleander if you want.”

She answered my civilized introduction with a stone that flew by at least an arm-length from hitting me. I chuckled lightly. “You’re aim is terrible, Jayna. Better polish that until we meet again.” I turned back to the street and lazily waved at her while walking.

I heard a building come tumbling down. Who left in the East Blue would even be able to-? …oh. Garp. And that sound means he most likely ran into Luffy…

I turned on my heels and jogged over to Jayna again who wobbled back onto her feet. I better play this right. i ran through the town layout in my mind, looking for the next water source where a person could be submerged effortlessly. She better be grateful at the end of this all because I was going to teach her the most important lesson a devilfruit user needed to learn, even if they have not realized yet that they belonged to that category: you can’t move underwater.

 

~*D*~

He had expected to see his son running around town because he kept an eye on development all around the world and albeit a new upstarting, promising pirate was not something that caught his eye, he made an exception for his son and his progress. He still had a lot to learn and there was room for development but everyone starts out small and he didn’t mind lending a hand if it didn’t interfere with his priorities.

He was about to interfere after Smoker has caught his son and gave him no leeway to escape yet he hesitated in jumping into action when he began to feel his father’s presence nearing. Soon enough the old man appeared. He looked like he always did. He really never changed, no matter what happened. Dragon looked on while Garp exchanged some words with Captain Smoker and the latter left. Luffy was still sprawled over the floor and Garp crouched down to the kid. Dragon heard his father’s rough voice say something and Luffy jumped up instantly panicking and trying to run away from his grandfather. When Garp caught Luffy at his shoulder and pulled his arm back to give the boy on of his famous fist of love’s, Dragon decided to intervene, jumped into action and within a second hold back his father’s fist.

Garp instantly turned his head to see who was able to stop his punches and his eyes widened in surprise. “You…?”

“Don’t try to stop fate from unfolding… and don’t you have someone else to worry about?”, he interrupted his father.

The old marine looked confused at first. He had clearly not been using his haki, else he would’ve known that one of his subordinates was not in the best condition. His weathered face hardened after he, too, felt what Dragon had been alluding to. Garp’s eyes flitted to Luffy again before the old man sighed and slowly released his iron grip on the kid. “Next time-“

“There won’t be a next time,” Dragon interrupted harshly and reciprocated his father’s stare until the old man finally jerked his fist out of Dragon’s grip and disappeared the next moment using shave.

“Who are you? Do you know Gramps?”, asked his son in confusion, stretching his shoulder.

Dragon smiled mysteriously. “You don’t need to know that yet.”

Luffy’s head fell to one side and he looked unsatisfied with the answer but still smiled and simply said, “Okay.”

 

~*S*~

A gentleman clad in a coat and a big hat walked through the city whose streets where eerily empty because of the sudden storm. He was about to leave the narrow street he had been wandering in for the last few minutes to enter a small plaza but he hastily retreated into the shadows when he saw that he was no longer alone.

In the center of the open plaza next to a fountain that was still spewing water as if competing with the rain crouched an elderly high-ranked marine next to a younger woman who was completely drenched and coughing up water. The elderly marine took of his coat and dropped it on the shoulders of the woman who immediately pulled it close, still shivering underneath the heavy cloth.

Sabo knew he had no time to lose; he needed to find the person who so mysteriously had sent him a letter. He wasn’t sure how someone knew about his childhood and about his supposed brothers – as he read their names, he had been sure that he somehow had heard those names before. As if they had meant something to him once. Yet he couldn’t stop staring at the old marine with that wide grin and how he patted the girl’s shoulder enthusiastically. Sabo felt like something about that old man had triggered a wave of nostalgia but he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he had run into him once before? That certainly didn’t explain the positive emotions welling up in him, though. If he had met the marine once it would’ve been on a battlefield.

The girl yelped when the old man picked her up princess style and began carrying her off. Sabo let out a sigh as they turned into the opposite direction of him. He took a step forward and looked after them. He chuckled lightly as the young woman hammered her fists against the old man’s chest.

“Let me down, I can walk on my own! I am not some stupid child that needs mothering! I’m serious, old man!”

Sabo’s laughter abruptly stopped just as the old man’s began. Garp? He knew that name, he was sure of it. The hero Garp, the one who caught Gol D. Roger. He never ran into _that_ man on the battlefield, that would’ve been a fight he’d remember clearly for sure… but where had he met him before?

The blond gentleman shook his head to free himself of all the lingering thoughts. This was not the time to think about all that. He was here to find one of his supposed brothers, Straw Hat Luffy, as the letter mentioned. The new pirate should be here somewhere.

Maybe he’d need to head out to the port, maybe his baby brother was already heading out. Sabo began running towards the town gates he knew well enough now. After all, he spend the entire day asking people if they had seen a boy with a straw hat around.

He had expected to find a lot at the town gates. He had expected marine presence since they might want to stop any of the pirates from leaving after they had caused such a ruckus on the execution platform. Sadly, Sabo had gotten there too late to run into the one person he was looking for. he had expected said pirates, too. he had not expected his superior to be standing there with his arms wide spread.

Before Sabo could say anything, Dragon dropped his arms slowly and simply said, “You’re too late, the boy has already set sails. His adventure already began.”

Sabo was about to retort something and question why exactly Dragon did not wait for him or didn’t tell Luffy to wait. But the wide smile Dragon was sporting was enough for him to drop the matter. Something great must’ve happened for him to be that excited. And Sabo would most likely get another chance to run into the Luffy kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the real start of the fic. I hope you buckled up because we’re heading into wild waters.


End file.
